Gotham Prep
by Gizmobunny
Summary: Six normal teenagers, ranging from class clown to valedictorian, and one Californian boarding school. Love, drama, dull dorm rooms, cafeteria food [Is that really catfish?].What could be more chaotic? Complete.
1. Back to School

**Ookay, this is my attempt (however sad) at my own school fic. These happen to be my favorite typre besides those tragic ones where either Raven or Beast Boy diesand it turnsout to be a beautiful love story (I happen to have quite a few of thes in my favorites list). But my two favorite school stories are Time of Your Life (by AnnMari123) and Normal Teenage Life (by Queen-of-Azarath). Haha, I love those two! **

**So yeah, here's a disclaimer (Gosh, I hate these things): I do NOT own Teen Titans. If I did (which I DON'T), then Starfire would get some better and more flexible hair (have you noticed? It's so high! How does she brush it), Robin would get some real pants (cough green spandex unitard cough), Terra would be a Titan (stupid Robin and his stupid big mouth...), and Kid Flash wouldn't wear his primarily colored tights so high up on his skinny little waist . So yeah, if any of that happens , which it won't considering that I'm writing this the Wednesday before the LAST EPISODE airs (boo hoo, I may cry...), you'll know that I've impulsively broken into my savings and bought the TV show. **

**Please don't flame me for the normal names of the characters in this fic. Personally, I think that originality is a good thing when giving normal names to the Titans. I mean, in my opinion, Dick is an appalling name for a male child in this day and age. Which is why I changed some things. And I couldn't shorten Richard to Rick because I was already shorteningVictor (cough Dr. Doom cough) to Vick, and I hate ryhmn (Which is most likelyspelled wrong). So here's a Handy Dandy List:**

**Kori Anders: **Duh. Everyone uses this one, just about.

**Gar Logan:** Another big shocker.

**Raven Slager: **Two words: adoptive last name. It's her made-up adoptive mom's last name.

**Rob Grayson:** Alternitive for Richard or DICK (Don't cha just love that name?)

**Vick Stone:** Self explanatory.

**Terra Markov:** Who could this be?... Hmm...

**Katherine Moth:** Kitten, hence the "Moth"

**Bee Cox:** Bumblebee, hence the "Bee"

**Roy Suttle: **In other fics, Roy is his name, but the "Suttle" is in appreciation of a dear friend

**Edmund "Dash" Wymark: **I COMPLETELY made this one up, so don't flame me for it. The nickname is self-explanatory, but teh Edmund? In part I like thinking aboutThe Chronicles of Narnia.

**That's all I think I should say right now, since not too many characters show up in chapter one. I think some of these aren't even tehre for a while. So enjoy the fic. **

* * *

**_Chpt. 1: Beginnings_**

"…_The things we worry about are never the things that happen. And the things that happen are the things we never dreamed." _-Naomi Shihab Nye

Gar Logan was asleep. Not the usual morning nap on the way to school (considering it was 5:00 PM), but something worse. Far worse. He was like a zombie, with his face pressed up against the car window, half asleep, dead to the world, quite possibly drooling like a monkey. A zombie monkey, to be exact.

"Dang, Gar," said a voice from the driver's seat. As the ocean blue PT Cruiser same to a stop in front of the school building, the young man reached over and poked his younger cousin. "Temperance," he said, turning around to face a small brunette in the back seat. "Wake up your brother." The girl was happy to do so, and immediately proceeded to leap over the seat in front of her, landing with her hands directly on top of Gar's face.

"Wake up, you freakin' buffoon!" the girl shouted at an incredible octave, waking Gar instantly.

"Geez, Tem!" he hissed, opening the car door. "I wasn't asleep to begin with." He rubbed his green eyes wearily as he thrust his hunter green suitcase out of the car and onto the sidewalk.

"Gar!" called the man at the steering wheel, causing the two kids to turn around. "Remember to be careful. Call if you have _any_ problems at all. I mean it." His expression went from impatient to completely serious.

"No problem, Matt," answered Gar, saluting the speaker. "What could go wrong anyways? I'll be fine. I've been away from home plenty of times."

"You know very well what I mean," replied to older boy. "Now call every once in a while. I'll miss you two. Bye." Before his cousins could reply, the PT Cruiser was racing back down the front drive, leaving the two adolescents stranded in front of the colossal alcazar of red-brick that is Gotham Preparatory Boarding Academy.

"Well, here goes nothing," said Gar to no one in particular.

"Ha," laughed Temperance with a snort. "I can't wait to see you get eaten alive by the brutal high school hierarchy!" She more or less spat the last four words, and a malicious smirk came across her round, freckled face.

"As if," retorted her brother. "You're only in eighth grade. You aren't even in the classes as me. And your dorm is across the campus since you're a girl." This comment appeared to end the discussion, as Temperance didn't say anything else as the two shuffled up the crowded front walk. It was near impossible to maneuver through the crowd, with all the mingling jocks, and nerds trying to get to class on time. Fortunately for Gar, no one stopped to stare at the 5'3", brunette guy with overly green eyes, or the under weight thirteen-year-old girl with a round face and black and pink Etnies shoes.

As soon as the two were through the crowd and out of potential danger, however, was when it happened. The front steps had come into view now that all the people had parted. Gar turned briefly to gloat to his sister about something or another…

…And ran right into something. Well, more like some_one_. It was a girl. And he more of _barreled_ into her. A small yelp came as the victim of Gar's lack of attention was knocked to the ground in a flurry of violet hair and pale skin.

"Oh, I'm _so_ sorry!" Gar wasted no time in rushing to the girl's side to help her off the ground.

"Priceless, Gar!" Temperance managed to say between peals of near-hysterical laughter. "Purely priceless!" With that, and a disregarded death-glare from her older brother, Temperance Logan fled the scene, leaving Gar alone with the girl.

Gar began to fabricate an apology, as knocking someone to the ground is certainly an act that can't go without at least a "sorry", but as he looked down at the girl, something in his mind seemed to click, as though flicking on a switch. The feeling was none other than familiarity.

"Rae?" Gar offered the first name that came to mind, and watched as the girl's eyes became narrow.

"Do I know you?" she asked as Gar politely helped her off the ground. She had long, violet hair pulled back into a low ponytail, and dazzling eyes of the same color. She wore a simple, ivory tank top and an army green linen skirt, and on her feet were plain, brown sandals. She looked to be approximately 5'3'', an inch taller than Gar himself. This was a striking difference from Gar's memory of her being at least a full head shorter than him.

"Don't you remember me?" Gar was dumbfounded. It had only been two years and already people had forgotten him… Could the world be so cruel?

"Wait a second, you're Garfield Logan!" The girl said with a certain amount of matter-of-fact-ness. Was it Gar's imagination, or did she sound a bit surly?

"Yeah," said Gar cautiously. "And you're Raven. Raven Slager. Glad you remember me." Raven took a step back, obviously examining Gar's lack of height.

"What ever happened to you?" she asked. Her voice had been confused to begin with, then surly, and now had lost emotion, as though she talked to Gar every second of the day. "You disappeared after seventh grade." Pause. "You didn't go to Everett, did you? 'Cause that's what was going around the campus after you vanished."

"Ew, no!" Gar was stunned by the thought of ever attending Walton-Everett Academy, Gotham Prep's rival school. "I was… out of town. That's all." Another pause. "My, ummm… grandmother died right after I finished the seventh grade. Since she was the only direct family me and Temperance had left, we had to move up to Steel City with my cousin. That's where I've been."

Raven showed a small amount of sympathy in her eyes, but didn't say anything. Gar was glad. He had low tolerance for people who apologized for the death of a loved one, as if it were their own fault.

Thankfully, the awkward silence was broken as soon as it began by a sharp squeal from an unknown source somewhere to Gar's left.

"Gar!" The voice was attached to an undersized, blonde girl who promptly threw her arms around Gar, nearly knocking the breath right out of him. Gar didn't recognize her until she looked up at him with her big, azure eyes, and Gar noticed her grey Gotham Prep swim team shirt, and her pink, heart-covered Converse high tops.

"Terra!" he exclaimed in reply. "Long time, no see!" Thought he offered a smile, Terra narrowed her eyes, and her tone lowered. Gar took this as a bad sign. Angry Terra was never a pleasant sign.

"You've been gone for more than a freakin' year!" _Oh boy._ "You didn't even tell us where you went! We thought you died!" Terra's eyebrows slanted dangerously, and her breath was coming out in short, shallow pants. Raven put her arm around the girl's shoulder.

"Please excuse Terra," Raven said with a smile. "She's been worried. She hardly talks about anything but 'What if he's been kidnapped', or 'What if he's lying dead at the bottom of the bottom of the Potomac River in D.C.'. It's driving us crazy. No, that's an understatement. It's driving is insane." Yet another pause. "But she was right. We _were_ worried."

If Gar hadn't been so busy examining Terra's appearance, he might have noticed Raven blushing, and may have blushed in return, causing Terra to giggle, and possibly sparking a slight romantic attraction between Raven and Gar. But then again, coincidence didn't feel like working to anyone's advantage today, and Gar didn't notice the scant reddening of Raven's pale cheeks. Instead, he was glaring with interest at Terra's attire. While she was wearing her swim team shirt and high tops, she was also clad in destroyed-wash Hollister jeans, and on her fingertips were fake tips. Sure, they looked as though they'd fallen victim to a rabid mongoose, but they were still there, and drastically anti-Terra. Another big difference was not in Terra's choice of clothes, but on her face. More specifically, around her eyes.

"Ummm…, I like the eyeliner, Terra," Gar posed it as more of a question, and that was exactly how Terra took it.

"My sister's idea," she answered, fingering her face as though it belonged to someone else. "Ever since she got married, she's been acting like I'm her daughter instead of the sullen teenaged sister still living at home. I guess she felt bad about leaving me for her new husband, and decided to take me under her wing. But sometimes she goes too far. I had to take charge and stash the cropped jean jacket and sequined moccasins in the dorm room closet the second she and Dad drove away."

Gar was surprised, but, then again, he was becoming accustomed to surprises.

* * *

"Bye, children!"

_Yeah, yeah._

"We'll think about you three every day!"

_Heard it all last year. And the year before._

"Don't forget to call, sweethearts! We'll miss you!"

_Gag_, thought Kori Anders as she watched her parents' silver Lincoln careen down the sloped front drive of Gotham Preparatory Academy. She reached down and picked up her large, green Vera Bradley duffle bag. The August air was humid and sticky on her tanned skin, urging her to get inside as quickly as possible.

"Well, this blows," said a girl to Kori's right. She was tall, with black hair, as many piercings as a pin cushion, and the attitude of a wet cat. And unfortunately, she was Kori's sister, Jessica Anders. Apparently, she wasn't speaking of anything in particular when she exclaimed, "This blows", as she promptly hustled off up the front walk, half-dragging her black duffel along on the pavement.

"Sooo… what's up?" Kori rolled her eyes at the voice of her little brother, Ryan. He was old enough to attend Gotham Prep this year, which was a plus for Mr. and Mrs. Anders, who were sick of having to put up with his Kitchen Experiments ™ (Oh, the horror…) and his severe ADD (Actually, Kori suspected her parents of being robot humanoids, since they rarely seemed to feel anything, so in that case they probably didn't have unique opinions on his behavior, other than that he wore them down so that they had to recharge more often). However, while the Kitchen Experiments ™ would end, the burden of Ryan's ADD and seeming unbridled desire to annoy the heck out of his sisters would continue as strong as ever. Well, Jessica didn't need to put up with Ryan, seeing as Ryan had some bizarre fear of being in her presence, which most likely had begun around the time that the eldest Anders sister had dyed her hair black, gotten her eyebrow pierced, and started smoking. Kori could take a fair guess that this wasn't coincidence.

Now, as she stood at the curb with her eleven-year-old brother, baking like a pig in an oven thanks to this heat, Kori found herself feeling far from guilty about her blatant dislike for her little brother.

"Your dorm's over there," she said, thrusting her finger in the general direction of the brick building that housed the male portion of the Gotham Prep population. With that, Kori turned her back, not wanting to see Ryan's puppy eyes or his carrot orange hair. Red hair was a trait that all the Anders children had inherited from some great-great grandparent or another. Jessica's was (naturally) coppery, Kori's had a weird pinky tint, and Ryan's was exactly the shade of a carrot, minus the Vitamin C.

It didn't take long for Kori to spot a familiar face in the crowd after she departed from her brother's location on the curb.

"Vick, hey!" The tall, African American boy turned his head to see the girl waving wildly from about five or so feet away. Her skin had tanned another three shades darker, and her hair, once flowing freely to her waistline, had been trimmed neatly up to her slim shoulders. A pair of drastically non-Kori cutoff shorts showcased the girl's heavily toned legs.

"Hey, girl!" replied Vick, his eyes growing wide. "You look great! What 'cha been up to?"

Kori blushed a little at his compliment. "I went to a volleyball camp up in north Cal," she said with a smile. "What did you do?"

"Alaskan cruise with my _entire_ family," answered Vick. "It was my dad's idea, so we rounded up everybody, drooling toddlers and elderly great aunts included, and we all went to spend a month on a big ol' boat."

"Sounds…fun," Kori commented. Vick caught the sarcasm in her tone and smiled.

"Just the word to describe it," he said. "But I bypassed most of the toddler-duty by spending all my time in the coffee shop, flirting with the waitresses."

This was so blatantlyVick that Kori didn't doubt it for a moment.

"Seen any of the others?" Vick asked, looking around as he might have missed a familiar person lingering over his shoulder.

"Nah, just you and me," answered Kori. It was at that moment, possibly even that millisecond that Kori spotted a familiar purple ponytail over near the front steps to the school. And to her knowledge, there was only one girl at Gotham Prep with purple hair.

"C'mon," said Kori, wasting no time in greeting her new friends. From what she could see, the blonde girl beside Raven was unmistakably Terra (My, had she gotten short), and the boy with them seemed unfamiliar, but Kori disregarded him for the time being.

"Rae!" squealed Kori, throwing her tanned arms around the younger girl (Younger by a year, but they took great importance from it. Kori was the most maternal by a long shot.).

"Hey, good to see you," replied Raven, straightening out her hair from the overly-eager greeting. As Raven went on to greet Vick, Kori issued an equally bone-smashing embrace to Terra. But when Kori pulled back from her blonde friend, she found herself looking down into two green eyes. Two very familiar green eyes, about the same color as her family's picture perfect front lawn, which she suspected to be made of that plastic turf stuff, since it never browned. Her mind went into double-search mode, trying to place a name with a face (or rather a name with eyes), and soon came back with a result.

"Hey, Kori," said Gar, a shy smile playing on his lips.

The sound that emitted from Kori's mouth was too high pitched of a squeak to record or even fathom. Just think of the highest note you've ever heard, and then imagine a few octaves higher. Yeah.

"Oh. My. GOSH!" she said while her companions were still in the process of recovering from the feeling that their eardrums might explode. "What happened? Where were you last year?" Kori took her arms away from Gar's shoulders. Was it just her, or had she grown? Gar was at least a head shorter than her. It made sense, though. Kori was tall (a little over 5'8'') for her age (almost 16), and she knew it.

"Out of town," responded Gar. This was the true and easy answer he had fabricated for when people asked about his location throughout the eighth grade year. It made sense, and he didn't have to go into the whole story, possibly risking having to hear people apologize for his grandmother's death.

"Why did you not tell us?" Kori asked.

"He left on short notice," answered Raven in place of Gar. Gar nodded quickly.

"Yeah," he was about to say in a vague response, but was cut off when Vick's muscular arm grabbed him from behind.

"Gar, my main man!" came Vick's delayed greeting. "Nice to see you!"

"Hey, dude!" answered Gar, ducking out of his big-framed friend's grasp. Vick Stone was a hugging type; Gar wasn't. It was a fact of life.

Gar prepared himself for the "Where were you" question, but it never came. Vick didn't like to give reasons. He didn't like it when people pried, so he tried to return the favor. Gar respected Vick for that.

"Hey, Kori," said Raven with a smirk. "I remembered to make sure there was no one else in out room this year. Just us." Kori showed her gratitude by giggling. Her mind journeyed back to last year, her ninth grade year, Raven and Terra's eighth grade year, when they had been roomed with a whiney and annoying seventh grader named Karen. She was lactose intolerant, constantly homesick (she got upset if a letter from home didn't arrive for her every two or three days), and had an annoying teddy bear named April May. Everyone rejoiced (literally; they had a small party) when Karen moved cross-country to Florida.

"Speaking of dorms," mentioned Vick. "We should get going to ours." He patted Gar on the back, motioning in the direction of the guys' dorms.

"How am I in yours?" Gar wanted to know. "I mean, they didn't assign me one or anything, but-"

"Me and Rob have a four-person room, but so far we're the only ones in there. You can stay with us." Gar was amazed at Vick's handling of this situation. He sometimes wished he could be that responsible. He vaguely imagined himself in Vick's place, sorting out problems with younger kids like some sort of superhero.

"Speaking of Rob," began Kori. "Have any of you talked to him?" Terra stifled a giggle, but they still all understood Kori's concern. The sun was already beginning to go down, and there was no sight of Rob Grayson.

Vick was about to answer, when, as if on cue, a small, shiny hunter green car with tinted widows pulled into a parking space under a tree, answering Kori's question. Well, Gar was still clueless, since he hadn't seen Rob since the seventh grade, when he sure couldn't drive. But all the others turned their heads, and watched as a tall (Well, not really. Rob was always kind of short) figure clad in blue jeans and a grey Liger T-shirt (Bred for its skills in magic) stepped out of the driver's side. He had black, kind of spiked, hair and wore mirrored sunglasses.

"Rob!" shouted Kori across the front walk, amid bizarre looks from other students. Well, the students who didn't know Kori and Rob stared. The ones who did just stood there and vegetated like they were already doing.

Rob seemed delighted to hear Kori's voice, and picked up his pace across the sidewalk, his black duffel back slung across one shoulder.

"Hey, Kori," he said before turning to the rest of the group, smiling, and saying his hellos, as usual. When he got to Gar, Rob was forced to push his sunglasses down his nose a bit.

"Well, hey there, Gar!" he said with growing enthusiasm. Gar was thankful that Rob wasn't the hugging type. Even though he didn't play football, like Vick, he was still muscular. Probably from swimming (He was a certified lifeguard during the summer). "What have you been doing with yourself?"

"Umm, nothing much," said Gar. "I've been living in Steel City for a while with my cousin." Like Vick, Rob was always a person to have his privacy respected, and to return the favor. Due to this quality, Rob took this answer from Gar and accepted it. It was as simple as that.

* * *

The sun was starting to go down as the six students finally departed for various dorm rooms. Gar was amazed as he gamely followed Rob and Vick on the trek across campus to the guys' dorm building. The campus had grown. A lot. Or maybe it was just that Gar hadn't been here since seventh grade, when the students were hardly allowed enough freedom to wander free and actually see the campus. That was probably it. Thanks to Rob and his bizarre infatuation with "walking on the wild side", as he called it (a fancy way of saying a wide variety of things from "sneaking into the kitchen after school to steal cinnamon rolls and Little Debbie snack cakes from the pantry" to "dropping projectiles ranging from vegetables to prosthetic limbs out of windows"), Gar had seen his share of work detail and morning detention throughout his short two year period at this particular school. The sad part of that story is that Gar had never actually done anything wrong to end up with detention. He had never really had the brain capacity to think like a criminal, and the school staff had no doubt noticed this. This was why they, after a while, started letting him off of detention whenever Rob was involved.

"So have the dorms gotten any better?" Gar asked conversationally (and to an extent, hopefully) as he looked up at the looming brick structure before him.

"If anything they've gotten worse," responded Vick with a snort.

"Oh," Gar replied vaguely as the three boys entered into the lobby of the building, suitcases in hand.

"Man, the girls have it all," Rob marveled. "I mean, their dorms are at least ten times better than ours."

Gar decided that he didn't really want to find out how Rob knew that._ Still walking on the wild side, I see,_ he thought to himself.

* * *

"I call the bed by the window!"

Kori's red suitcase landed with a _thud_ on the thin, suspiciously bouncy mattress. The last rays of sunlight still fell in slanted bars across the industrial, maroon comforter (courtesy of the school) as Kori fell back onto the bed with a content sigh.

"Ah, yes," commented Raven, with a certain amount of monotone, upon entering the space. "Leave it to Kori Anders to find something appealing in even the most bland dorm room."

"This is my bed," announced Terra from her place across the room, where she was already taking on the task of spraying down her side of the dorm with her handy bottle of Febreze.

"Feel free to have it," said Raven, gazing with uncertainty at the air freshener. "I'll just take this one." She laid her black suitcase down beside one of the two remaining beds in the room made for four.

Kori rolled over to face her friends, a smile on her round face. "I bet this school year will be the best yet!" she exclaimed with an incredible amount of enthusiasm for someone who has just been sentenced to live in a dusty dorm room at a boarding school for the next nine months, after riding in the backseat of a hot car for the entire five hours it takes to get to the said boarding school.

"Why do you say that?" Terra was apparently finished freshening her share of the air in the dorm room, and had now proceeded to remove the jean jacket and sequined moccasins she had mentioned earlier from the inner reaches of the walk-in closet.

"I mean, look at what's already happened," continued Kori. She was now sitting up so that her red hair caught the light from the fading sun, and her eyes sparkled like gems. Thanks to this, Raven and Terra were finding it close to impossible to be annoyed at their roommate's joy. Instead, they listened to an extent and continued to unpack their belongings.

"First there's the fact that Gar came back this year," Kori began. For some reason Terra looked at Raven with a smile when Kori said this. "Then we got the dorm all to ourselves instead of ending up with someone like Karen. And so far, I haven't seen a single potentially deadly spider in our dorm!"

The girls considered this. After the whole Karen fiasco last year, almost anything was an improvement.

Not wanting to dull Kori's excitement, Raven didn't mention that they probably hadn't seen any spiders yet because they had only been in the room for three to four minutes, and the only person to open the dreaded closet doors so far was Terra, who had far from perfect vision, despite her contacts, and was sure to have overlooked any eight-legged fiends. Kori could have her fun if she wanted.

"What time is dinner?" asked Terra, breaking the silence, during which Kori had been gazing wistfully out the window, and Raven had been putting various items of clothing into the closet on her and Kori's side of the room. Despite many doubts about Kori's "best year yet" idea, Raven had yet to find any spiders, even in the farthest corners of the closet.

"7:00 tonight, since we got here only an hour ago," answered Raven. Kori hadn't even heard the question, and being the semi-nerd that Raven was, she'd had the entire schedule and campus layout memorized by heart since the first day of her sixth grade year.

"What time is it now?"

"6:50," answered Raven, glancing quickly at the alarm clock she had just placed on her nightstand moments before. Unpacking was something she enjoyed. Packing, however, was just too stressful. She was always afraid she'd forget something and need it later.

"Then let's go," said Kori suddenly. She slipped her feet back into her Old Navy flip flops, pulled her hair back with an elastic, and was ready to go, which was a surprise, since she had only just been lost in thought.

"Well, give me a second," Raven said, stopping Kori in her rush to get out of the room. Raven proceeded to let her hair out of its ponytail, and straighten out her skirt.

"Rae," teased Terra. "No matter how much you primp, Gar's not going to notice little things, I promise you. Guys are shallow beings."

Ravens cheeks went as bright a shade of red as Kori's hair. "I'm _not_ primping for _him_!"

"Then why are you the color of Kori's hair?"

Raven was not prepared for Terra's comeback, and was forced to give up the fight.

"Time to go take Gotham Prep by storm, ladies," Terra said just for the sake of drama. Raven noted that it was just dinner, and there would be approximately 279 more of them, but Terra paid little attention.

"This is still the _first_ dinner," she replied in her defense.

The school year had officially begun.

12

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**That "12" right there isn't supposed ot be there. I just kept it there b/c it's so random. **

**So tell me waht you thought. It could be a while before I get the next chapter up, since I'm stuck, but I'll put it up when I gat finished! Just press the purple button! I love reviews!**

**-Giz**


	2. Life Proceeds

**Okay, yeah. This is chapter two (obviously) and I actually got it up the same night I published the first chappie (go me!), so have fun with it. **

**I made a couple of typos in chapter one: Edmund "Dash" Wymark is Kid Flash. I left that out. And Gar is 5'2'', even though it says he's 5'3'' (Rae's 5'3'', not him). **

**Yeah. I can't believe Teen Titans is over (I wrote the first chapter last Wednesday, when Things Change hadn't aired yet. I worte this one later, but got 'em published hte same day)! It's so sad! Well, maybe not as sad as I'm making it sound. And the thing is, I haven't seem Homecomings Pts. 1 or 2, or the last episode. But I will make it my goal ot see them! Well, not a real goal like becoming a figure skater (which is more of a dream) or growing another couple of inches (another dream). So yeah. Enough babbling. **

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* * *

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**Chpt. 2: Life Proceeds**

"_Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." _–Carolyn Mackler

The three girls didn't exactly take Gotham Prep by storm. In fact, Kori nearly broke a flip flop tripping over her own feet, Terra accused Kori of being an uptalker, and they got honked at by several times by cars on their way out of the campus. Well, _Kori_ got honked at several times. But Raven and Terra had long ago noticed that the beauty of being around Kori was that whenever some guy honked or wolf-whistled at her, you could always pretend it was directed at you instead, which provided a decent boost in self-image.

Dinner was basically a forty-five minute period of reminiscing over past years (Past teachers, past crushes, and past stupid acts of Rob, Vick, and occasionally Gar), eager recollections of summer break adventures (Raven had a drastically anti-Raven story involving chasing her demented cat, Cosmo, down the street while wearing pajama pants and a bra) , and, of course, getting Gar caught up (mainly on gossip), while briefly touching on normal teenager subjects like extracurricular activities (Kori wanted to know whether or not to try out for the volleyball team, while Terra and Raven tried to get Gar to rejoin band.), music (Or, "Why in the world does Rob Grayson have 'My Humps' on his iPod"), and Star Wars (After a grueling period of interrogation and accusation, Vick admitted to being a, gasp, Star Wars nerd).

"Who ever would've guessed?" Rob was saying approximately three and a half minutes after the Star Wars Incident™. Vick had always been a jock, even back in the days of little league football at his elementary school up north in Seattle, Oregon when all the players do the entire game is run back and forth, accidentally knock the ball into the bleachers, wait for the ref to throw it back into the game, and repeat the process until someone finally does something and scores a touchdown.

"It isn't like I have all the posters and action figures in my room or anything," Vick said, defending himself to an extent. "I just like have all the movies." Rob was about to come back with some incredible insult, possibly having to do with Vick's mother, but he was interrupted (rudely in his mind) by the buzz of the school's PA system.

"Welcome back, Gotham Prep students, to another wonderful year at school!" The students groaned, and a few (like Rob) swore, at the voice of Assistant Principle Mamfunk, or the Manfunk to his biggest fans (also Rob). "I hope you all had a wonderful summer-" Which was officially Lie of the Year, considering that Assistant Principle Manfunk would sooner run naked in front of a live news camera while wearing a set of reindeer antlers with little jingle bells on his head than see his students gleeful and giddy from a fun filled summer. "- and are all ready to dive right back into your classes tomorrow morning. I would also like to mention that any student who has not received their schedule in the mail needs to pick it up in the main office immediately following dinner. And in addition to these announcements, I would like to say that any student caught stealing test answers from the office, drawing clothing of any sort on the pictures in our Health textbooks, or adorning Erik the Viking with a fake afro and/or jingle bell antlers, will be sentenced to work detail, detention, and possible expulsion. Goodbye."

As soon as the PA system clicked off, Kori turned to face Rob, a fire in her emerald eyes that rivaled that of a California wildfire.

"You stole test answers?" Her voice seem to be dripping poison.

"No! I didn't! I swear!" Rob backed down quickly, seeming to shrivel under Kori's gaze. Ah, yes. The one thing that could terrify Rob Grayson: Kori Anders, a hurricane force when angered even slightly.

"Are you _sure_?" Kori gave Rob another death glare, this one dying in ferocity, but still enough to make a T-Rex suck its thumb.

"Yes," answered Rob for a final time, with a note of finality. Satisfied with this answer, Kori finally backed off.

"Okay," she said, the bubbly, uptalker syndrome back in her voice. It was amazing how quickly Kori could go from being entirely enraged to completely content in under two seconds. It must have just been one of the many assets of being perfect. Kori could hold a grudge, but she could also forget one with the push of some button inside her mind.

"What about the other stuff?" asked Gar, his eyes curious.

"Oh, he did that stuff last year," replied Vick conversationally. Gar nodded in understanding. What an odd year this was shaping up to be.

* * *

It was 8:46 AM. Raven was in English class, and she would have gladly given her life savings and every hair on her head to be asleep.

Well, maybe not. Maybe just a couple of dollars. And one or two hairs.

"Parrish, Maya?"

"Here," said a Hispanic-looking girl at the front of the classroom. Her dark hair was twisted stylishly into a complicated bun, and there seemed to be enough clear lip gloss applied to her lips to sail a small yacht. Her stiletto heels were each as long as her hand, shiny French tips included. Raven's official object of dislike.

"Wymark, Edmund?" Apparently Ms. Anstett wasn't going in alphabetical order.

"It's Dash, not Edmund. I don't go by Edmund." The speaker this time was a boy directly to Raven's left, right behind Terra (unfortunately Ms. Anstett hadn't allowed her students to choose their own seat). He was normal height, possibly a bit taller than Raven herself, with reddish-brown hair and eyes the color of a Christmas tree, and those eyes were sending Raven a Look right this second. Terra caught a slight glimpse, maybe a hint of the heat radiating from Dash's smile, and sent Raven a look that said either "You sexy beast!" or "Lucky!". As soon as Terra turned away, Raven cast a glance in the direction of Gar's seat across the room. Gar was half-asleep (He wasn't a morning person), squinting in the blinding light from the classroom window, with no chance of having seen that Look from Dash.

Raven spent the remainder of the class paying false attention to Ms. Anstett, especially to her glitzy, magenta, square-framed glasses and the overly large hoops earrings emerging from the mass of bleach-blonde ringlets atop her head. The most annoying parts of Ms. Anstett's appearance were her pink cargo capris and her cropped jean jacket, complete with rhinestones. The capris seemed to be sneering at Raven (Was it Raven's imagination, or did those pockets look like eyes?), making fun of the Gotham Prep school uniform she was wearing. Raven glared down at her own attire: a white collared dress shirt, rolled up to the elbows (and thankfully not tucked in), a navy blue, pleated skirt (lower-thigh length), and (the worst, if not weirdest part) a matching ascot. Well, the ascot was interchangeable. A female student could wear either an ascot or a tie. For example, Terra had chosen to go in the direction of the tie today, while Raven had chosen an ascot. A blazer was optional, along with a sweater vest, and the good part of the deal was the line that said "Shoes and jewelry of choice".

Ms. Anstett finished her role call with "Capp, Bailey" (a short brunette girl with a lot of eyeliner) and "Felder, Heath" (a very tall boy whose hair resembled that of Napoleon Dynamite's, in a shade of dark brown). This was about the time that Raven looked up to see the class dismissing through the single door. It was actually a humorous sight, seeing twenty or so adolescents trying to fit through a space that was only two to three feet wide. Apparently, the sight was found by Ms. Anstett to be urgent to an extent, as she immediately hustled over to the door, saying "Now one at a time!".

"I think Gar's catching up on his beauty sleep," mentioned Terra, motioning over to the final addition to their trio. Sure enough, Gar was fast asleep on his desk. Terra laid a hand on Raven's shoulder, saying, "Watch and learn." With that, the blonde pulled a mechanical pencil out of her purse and tossed it in the direction of Gar. It didn't miss. In fact, it hit him square in the shoulder.

"That was_ my_ soap dish, and you_ know_ it!" Gar blurted out, bolting up from his desk. There was a flash, and Raven whirled around to see that Terra had even whipped out her trusty digital camera (whom she had named Elenora for reasons unknown) for the occasion.

"How long was I out?" asked Gar with a yawn, quickly coming to his senses.

"The whole class," replied Terra with a smirk and a pat on the back.

"The _whole_ class?"

"Yes, Gar. The _whole_ class."

* * *

"What _is_ that!" Vick's eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped faster than a collectable coin falling from the roof of Big Ben.

"Catfish." Kori spoke with such simplicity one may think she had been telling Vick what color her hair was. She didn't even question her friend's surprise. She just took her seat and began poking at the thing on her plate.

"That is _not_ catfish," responded Vick with a shake of his head. Kori sighed.

"Well, it's _trying_ to be catfish," the redhead said with a note of finality.

"So Rob," began Terra. Rob looked up from his plate where he was moving around something resembling an exotic vegetable mix, called Winter Vegetable Blend, according to the menu. "How was art?" Rob had, against his will, been placed in a reform pottery class, due to a large amount on campus crimes including, but not limited to, dressing Erik the Viking, the school's mascot statue, in a fake fro and jingle bell antlers. Today had been his first day of class, and his companions were eager to hear his recollection of the "End of Life as We Know It", as Rob had called it.

"Well, it wasn't horrible," he replied. "Mrs. Kakanni has this urn that she made during college, and it's kind of creepy. It's all these weird shades of green, and she named it Theodoro, and she's obsessed with 'his' safety. So when the fire alarm went off during class and we had to get outside, Mrs. Kakanni didn't realize it was only a drill, so we were going out the door, and she starts screaming, 'Theodoro! Theodoro!', and then she turns to us and screams, 'Someone get the pot! Don't forget the pot!'. It was priceless, especially since The Manfunk walked in at that moment to make sure that we knew where our fire exit is."

"Is that why I saw Esther Atkins carrying a big green urn across the football field during the drill?" asked Terra. Esther was one of her friends from past years, and a supposed delinquent as well. They all knew better, though. Esther was a rather taciturn brunette with asthma, who would never even consider making a pencil mark on the spine of a library book, much less doing something worthy of reform classes.

"Is Mrs. Kakanni the one with the zebra-print velour pant suit?" Gar wanted to know.

"Ooh," Vick commented eagerly. "I think she subbed in my seventh grade Pre-Algebra class once or twice. I failed all the quizzes on those days because her brightly colored pants were so distracting."

"That's the lady," said Rob with a certain amount of regret in his voice. "I find it rather surprising that she's a 'Mrs.'" His friends took a brief moment to consider this.

"Kori, what _is_ that on your tray?" The silence was broken by Raven's voice, and a surprised squeal from Gar, who hadn't heard the violet-haired girl sit down beside him.

"Catfish," answered the redhead again, but with much less fervor than the first time. She was perceptibly beginning to doubt the authenticity of her lunch.

"Why do I have trouble believing that?" asked Raven, placing her lunch (a neat salad, a pickle slice, and a Styrofoam cup of iced tea) on the round table in front of her.

"So how's your day been, Rae?" asked Kori, changing the subject quickly.

"Well, a teacher told me my skirt was too short, Maya Parrish called me a punk thanks to my hair, and I was late to Biology, then slept through it." Raven took a bite of her pickle, ignoring the shocked look she was receiving from Gar.

"Did I miss out on some sort of personality switch?" he asked Raven, eyeing her suspiciously. "Last time I checked, you were the perfect student, minus the hair, and you wouldn't be caught dead in something shorter than knee-length! What happened?"

There was an array of giggles from Terra and Kori, and Vick sighed, leaving Gar with a confused visage and an unanswered question.

"I'm still Raven, if that's what you're asking," was the reply. "I haven't been replaced by a robot, alien, or anything like that. I am fully human." She said this second part in a hurried voice that seemed to say, "Here are all the answers to the questions you are about to ask." Gar turned away, defeated, causing Raven to ask.

"Gar," she said with a chuckle, trying to hold herself back from hugging him for being so adorable. "The only thing that's changed is that we're in high school now. It's different. Get used to it." She meant it teasingly, as if to make a statement, not an impression, but even as Gar left lunch with Raven and Terra, his backpack draped limply over one shoulder, the line rang over in his head.

_It's different. Get used to it_, she had said, but in Gar's head, her voice seemed to say,_ I'm different. Get used to it_. And she was. Raven was different. Was Gar different? He didn't look much different, if that counted as an answer. Same height (almost), same hair, same goofy grin and annoying clownish visage. Yep, same old Gar. Impervious to change, always laughing, never serious.

_It's different. Get used to it._

_I'm different. Get used to it._

_I'm different._

_Yes, as a matter of fact you are. And I can't seem to change.

* * *

_

"Mr. Grayson, I hope you enjoyed your nap."

It happened just like that. One moment Rob was fast asleep on his desk, having a bizarre dream that Vick was trying to paint him yellow, and Kori was a mermaid, and the next he was begin woken up by the annoyingly polite voice of Mrs. Hall, his Algebra teacher.

The prospect of afternoon detention on Tuesday in Room 115 was actually calming to Rob in a sense. It reminded him of the carefree feeling he had carried all throughout his freshman year. Detention had been a regular happening in his agenda, and, apparently, things were back to normal. _Kori won't like this_, Rob told himself, but the fun part about not caring what your grades and intellectual status are is that you can brush away premonitions like this one with the flick of a wrist. It was as simple as that.

"Man," Vick said quietly, leaning over Rob's desk. "You'd better watch it. Mrs. Hall is a bat. She won't deal with you sleeping through every class period, dude."

"It's not _my_ fault Mrs. Hall's room is so warm and cozy," Rob was about to say when the bell rang. The bells at Gotham Prep were not normal bells. They were more like blaring sirens, lasting for up to thirty seconds at a time. Thought processes became near to impossible during this time, and even the most collected student could lose their nerve.

"Rob? Is that you?" As loud and blaring as the bell was, the voice of Katherine Moth was worse. Far worse. Like nails scratching on a chalkboard. Like a million forks being drawn across china plates.

_No, it's _this_ that Kori won't like,_ Rob corrected himself mentally as Katherine (Kitten to her closest friends) approached him, a wildly happy smile plastered on her perfect blonde head. Rob recalled and spoke a phrase he had said plenty of times in his freshman year: "I'm taken, Katherine."

"Gosh, Rob, you're such a tease!" Katherine's grin was as wide as the Mrs. Hall's hips, if not wider, and a lot uglier. "Taken? By whom?"

Rob had long ago trained himself to say _"A girl I met over the summer."_ and when asked her name, he would always answer, _"Alicia."_(No nonsense, not too dull, not outrageous, as Terra had put it). Yet this time, Rob felt a tug inside his frame, like the beginnings of a heartache. The name "Alicia" was forming at his lips, but wouldn't come all the way out.

"Come on, baby?" flirted Katherine. "Who is she?" Now she was making Rob sick.

The next noise that came from Rob's lips was not his own. Well, he did say it, but not with the intention to.

"Kori Anders."

That was what he said, just before turning on one heel and walking away.

* * *

It was Monday evening, right around sunset, as Gar was resting uncharacteristically on the big window seat in the guys' dorm common room, with his head pressed against the glass, that the question came. He knew, and had known, that it would come sooner or later, and he had guessed sooner. Little did her know that he was right.

It was completely in character that the question would come from Raven, who had a knack for asking out-of-the-blue questions that could be considered nosy. It was ironic that Gar happened to be deep in thought about his grandmother when Raven walked into the common room. It was just plain weird that she was in there to begin with. But she was, and spotting Gar, came to sit beside him. He knew she was there; She didn't have to say anything. She just sat down beside him and looked him out the window, never meeting his gaze, but showing a certain amount of sympathy all the same.

"How did your grandmother die?" There was the question. It struck Gar in the heart like an arrow, and proceeded to burrow deeper, knocking out a few veins and causing several internal bleeding fits along the way.

The silence that followed was a bit unnerving. Raven turned her head, and Gar looked at her, his gaze following the flow of her hair, the gentle edge of her cheek, the small downward curve of her thin mouth. Her mouth was his favorite feature. So small and insignificant, but showing the most beautiful smile and perfect teeth when urged to be happy.

"She fell," Gar finally replied, forcing back pent up emotion. It was time to give an answer. He had spent so long hiding from what really happened, trying to tell himself that Trudy Logan had never existed. He had spent nearly a year and a half sneaking around the wall, instead of out in the open. He was afraid of the truth.

"How?" Raven continued. Her voice was softer then when she asked the initial question.

"Down the stairs," Gar said, wishing that was enough, yet knowing Raven wanted more. He might as well finish what he started. "Me and Temperance were outside, goofing off. We were supposed to be doing chores, but since it was our first day back from school, Granny let us have a little grace period." Gar saw something change in Raven's expression as he paused briefly, like maybe she didn't want to hear the sad ending. She had met Gar's grandmother once in the sixth grade, at an award ceremony. Trudy Logan had helped get a stain (courtesy of Terra) out of Raven's shirt.

"Mine and Temperance's rooms were the only rooms upstairs, and we always brought down our own laundry, since we knew that Granny had trouble with stairs. But we never even thought to help her with that." This was the hard part. The big finish. Gar could feel himself slipping away from the ominous wall of protection as the words came out.

"We were coming inside to get something to drink, and we saw Granny through the big picture window in the kitchen. She was coming down with an overflowing laundry basket on her hip. She waved to us, and when she did, a T-shirt fell out of the basket. She reached out to catch it, and lost her balance. That's when it happened. I heard Temperance scream, and we both took off running. Granny wasn't moving. She had hit her head on the end table at the bottom of the stairs. I grabbed the phone, and Temperance started sobbing. Then the ambulance came, and I was trying so hard not to cry, because I didn't want Temperance to think that I wasn't strong enough to take care of her."

That was it. The whole story. Gar felt his lungs fill up with air. He expected his eyes to fill up as well, but they didn't. Not this time.

The silence that followed wasn't uncomfortable. If anything, it was refreshing. Gar didn't make eyes contact with Raven. Instead, he sat there, unmoving, his eyes fixed out the window. For several minutes, he thought that Raven was doing the same thing, her eyes fixed on some point outside, but when he finally turned his head, with a long sigh, Gar saw that Raven was gazing at none other than him.

"I know that 'sorry' doesn't cut it," she said at last. "But I want you to know that whatever sort of sympathy would make you feel better, I'd put everything I have into showing it."

Gar knew somehow that Raven would go out of her way to make him feel better. She was a girl to stick to her promises. But deep inside, he knew that she already had. He was no longer creeping along the edge. Now, he was out in the open, feeling the sun on his face. The view was better here. And as he searched for a thank you strong enough for Raven, Gar noticed a pale hand lying across his own. No words were needed, and he knew that now.

* * *

Tuesday came as quickly as Monday had left, and with it came a horrible prospect: rain, rain, and more rain.

It was the kind of day where most of the rain has already come, during the night, but everything is wet enough to where your pants get all soaked and heavy around the bottoms, and the school floors are dirty with tracked-in mud and water.

Kori had worn her New Balance tennis shoes with her school uniform today, so her feet didn't get an unneeded mud bath. Yet as she trekked into her third period study hall, Kori was already leaving muddy footprints on the tile floors, and she could feel her toes squishing around in water, after she'd accidentally planted one foot in a puddle on the way to American Government.

She took her usual seat in the far left row, next to the window, and promptly pulled out her homework planner to check and see her choice of study hall activities. With a teacher like Mrs. Garner, studying was truly the only safe thing to do.

It was at this moment that Kori noticed a few giggle coming from the other side of the room. Oh, perfect. Katherine and her entourage. Kori fumed inwardly upon remembering several occasions during her four previous years at Gotham Prep upon which she had been subject to Katherine's taunting and crude remarks. And now, as it appeared, Kori might have to go through yet another one of those dreaded occasions, since the group of three was now headed in her direction. Oh goody. First insult of the year.

"Ummm, love the tennis shoes, Anders," said Katherine with a tone of false admiration, "subtly" showing off her black stiletto boots ("subtly", as in sitting down in the desk beside Kori and kicking up her heels so that Kori had to scoot over in order not to be kicked and possibly bruised). It was sickening how Katherine was the only natural blonde in her group. Ginger and Emily were both brunettes, gone bleach blonde, as if being brunette were some disease, curable only by way of a bottle of bleach and a perfect replica of the Ashlee Simpson haircut. Kori felt as though she might be sick all over the front of Katherine's C-cup chest.

"So, Kori," began Katherine, her voice seeming to drip with a more saccharine version of the Slumber Party Voice™, as Kori called it. It was the voice that girls always used when playing Truth or Dare. "What's this I hear about you and Rob getting together at last?"

Kori nearly choked on thin air. Her emerald eyes glanced nervously to the door, and to Rob's usual seat, but he was nowhere in sight.

"Wha… What are you…" Kori stuttered with no avail. Katherine just laughed openly, a hideous noise like jingle bells on drugs.

"So he was lying?" Katherine looked falsely stunned for a short moment, before bursting into more heinous laughter. Kori felt dizzy, as though she might fall over and die any second.

Before Kori could register any of her thought, Katherine and her cronies were gone, back to their side of the room, and had been replaced by none other than Rob and Vick.

"Hey, Kori!" said Vick, slinging his backpack down beside his usual desk in front of Kori. Rob took the seat to Kori's immediate right. Before his backside had even touched the plastic of the chair, Kori was on him like a pack of wolves.

"Can you guess what Katherine Moth just came up and said to me?" Rob's eyes got all narrow, as though he was looking to pick a fight with Katherine for insulting his (girl)friend, yet again.

"What?" Vick asked for Rob, since the intended recipient of the question was unresponsive.

Kori turned to Rob, her eyes a mix between furious and inquisitive. "She said that a rumor has been going out that we," she wiggled her fingers between her and Rob, "Are going out."

_Oh, crap,_ thought Rob, remembering back to yesterday in Algebra. The ominous Katherine fiasco. Yes, Rob. "Oh crap" indeed.

"Kori, I promise I have no idea why I said that," replied Rob, trying his best to end this quickly. However, Kori seemed to be feeling persistent.

"Why did you say anything at all?" That fire was back in Kori's eyes. She wasn't taking this very well, Rob decided.

"Kori," Rob said in an attempt to calm the redhead. "I'm _sorry_. Okay? _Sorry_." He spoke in a babyish tone, simply for the sake of safety. He didn't want to accidentally use an accusatory tone and end up strung from the flagpole by the skin on his forehead, or anything like that.

Kori opened her mouth, as if to make a comment or a rude comeback, but quickly closed it with a girlish snap. She wanted to argue, but Rob's apology had been so humble that she couldn't help but admire his sweetness. _Boys are so adorable when they're sorry_, Kori thought to herself as Rob wallowed in something suspiciously resembling self-loathing. Vick was just confused, with a capital "C".

"Aw, c'mon, you two!" he exploded in near-hysteria. "You pine over each other on a daily basis! You stare lustfully across rooms filled with people! You flirt openly in public! And now you don't want people to think you're together? They already think that anyways!"

"They do?" Kori responded in a tiny voice.

"Duh! Look in a mirror!"

Kori and Rob took a moment to consider this as Vick went into another rant.

"And don't tell me ya'll don't want to be together," he warned. "Because you do!"

"We do?" It was Rob's turn to be confused.

"Yes!" Vick was on a roll. When he was angry, he was angry. "So why aren't you!"

"Who says we're not?" challenged Rob, getting a loud gasp out of Kori.

"I do!"' replied Vick.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"Wanna bet?"

"How much?"

"Ten bucks, sucker!"

With that, Rob turned to Kori. "Kori Marie Anders," he began, getting into a proposal pose. "Will you go out with me?" Kori nodded happily with a girlish giggle, and Rob smirked at Vick.

"You owe me ten bucks."

* * *

**Well, there's chapter two. Don't expect chapter three soon, seeing as I haven't even started writing it, and now I need a plot rather than random happenigs. I've set the characters enough. **

**So I hope I'll get chapter three up soon, but don't count on it. Well, bye!**

**-Giz**


	3. Of Marching Band and Young Love

**Sorry about the wait, but I'm back, and with 3 handy-dandy reasons: **

1)Writer's Block: We all get it, we all hate it. I erased the whole chapter about seventeen times before I found something that worked.

2)Sinus Infection: I was sick, and missed three days of school, but felt too lousy to get out of bed, so I spent all three days watching movies. I watched Fantasitc 4 three times, In Her Shoes twice, and then Princess Mononoke, the second Harry Potter movie, and National Treasure all once. I was bored.

3)Video Game Distraction: When cleaning my room, I found _The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker_ under this huge pile of crap, so I was all, "Oh, what the heck," only I didn't actullay say that, that was just my general atitude, so then I spent the next 17 days beating it, which took a lot less time than I'd expected it would. So yeah. All my time was devoted to that for a while.

And now I guess I'll get on with the chapter you've been waiting so long for.

And thank you very much to the three people who reviewed.

* * *

Chpt 3: Of Marching Band and Young Love 

_"No one will win the battle of the sexes; there's too much fraternizing with the enemy." _

– Henry Kissinger

* * *

It was approximately 1:30 AM ( 1:32 to be exact) and Kori was excited. 

Even though it was past midnight, it was raining like no tomorrow outside, and Kori had about five hours until her alarm went off, she felt like she could run a marathon. She could lift a small planet. She could single-handedly win every Olympic event known to man, beast, and thirty seven different typed of sea-algae.

Well, maybe not that last one.

From across the room, Kori watched as Raven rolled over in her sleep and Terra muttered a few words in what resembled Latin. With a sigh of contentment, Kori pulled her long legs out of the covers and hugged her knees against her chest. With one finger she traced the pinstripes on her red Hollister pajama pants. Her body was here, in Room 201 on the second floor of the girls' dormitory building at Gotham Preparatory Boarding Academy, but her mind was elsewhere.

Rob Grayson had asked her out. _Rob Grayson _had asked her out. Rob Grayson had _asked her out!_ As in, Rob Grayson was Kori's boyfriend. _Oh, yes_.

As much as she hated to admit it. Rob really was her first real boyfriend. Sure, she'd had crushes and been to the movies with boys and even once had kissed one (Daniel Pruett, second grade, underneath the slide on the playground at school), but a real boyfriend, especially one so handsome, was an intimidating thought for Kori. He was a real, live boy. And he happened to be the real, live boy whom Kori had liked (maybe more than liked) since the first fateful day of sixth grade.

So in the cramped dorm room, with her thoughts slowly dying down, Kori fell asleep, her knees pulled to her body, and a smile on her lips.

* * *

"What's wrong with Kori?" 

It was Wednesday morning, and Kori was still out of it, in a rather dreamy way. Her hair was pulled into a high ponytail, and despite the improved weather conditions (It was no longer raining, yet still soggy), Kori was still wearing her New Balance shoes, this time with mismatched socks.

Now, Terra was questioning her mental state, and with good reason.

"I think she's delirious," answered Raven, waving a pale hand in front of Kori's face, with no avail.

The three girl's were making their way to the cafeteria for breakfast, quite slowly in Kori's case.

"I am _so _not ready for that English quiz," said Terra, changing the subject. She ran her hand nervously through her hair and picked at the ragged ends of her French tips. It was only the third day of school, and Ms. Anstett had already scheduled a quiz over literary terms. As usual, Terra had freaked out and forgotten to study. Quite contrarily, Raven had scanned her notes the night before, and now felt completely prepared. It was a cruel fact of life that she could do that, while Terra had to slave over her messily scribbled notes with the concentration of someone decoding hieroglyphics for at least an hour to even retain a single fact.

"Quiz me," begged Terra, her eyes meeting Raven's.

" Okay," Raven paused as she thought up a question. "What is the term for 'sequence of events'?" Terra's expression became that of a person who has been faced with a life changing decision. Her eyebrows slanted, and her nose twitched a little.

"…I don't know," was the result of at least a minute and a half of deep thought. "What is it?"

Raven shook her head. "Plot, Terra. It's plot." Terra sent Raven a patented "I knew that" look, and nodded, satisfied.

"I think I got it," she replied, ending the brief study session. Yes, that was Terra. IQ of a genius, work ethic of a pilgrim.

* * *

Kori spoke for the first time that day as the three girls took their seats at the breakfast table. Her eyes averted to Rob as he sauntered in moments later. 

"Hey, Kori," he said, winking. It wasn't a normal wink, either. It was slow and purposeful, seeming to take at least three decades rather than three seconds.

"Hi, Rob," replied Kori. She silently cursed herself. Her voice had come out squeaky and high-pitched, though she had been going for calm and collected. Was there a trick to this? Were there clinics, or possibly books? Kori could see it now: "Talking to Your Boyfriend for Dummies".

Kori had been so deep in thought that she hadn't noticed the ongoing argument beside her at the table.

"C'_mon_, Gar!" Terra was whining. "Come back to band! We need you!"

"I've been gone for two years. You never needed me then," replied Gar, narrowing his eyes at Terra. Beside the two, Raven seemed to be devoting as much whole-hearted interest to her Frosted Flakes as anyone could muster.

"We could use you on drumline," argued Terra. "Couldn't we, Rae?"

"Mmm-hmm," answered Raven without looking up at Terra or Gar.

Ever since the start of the school year a couple of says ago, Terra, and in a couple of rare cases, Raven, had been trying to convince Gar to return to band. Gar had it on his schedule already, but due to an unfortunate incident involving several dozen chickens and a wheelbarrow full of spicy mustard (the stench was awful), the sixth period band students had spend the period in the library the past two days chewing gum, drumming on the tables, and pantsing each other. Well, this was mostly the guys and a tiny, insane, and completely perverted eighth grade girl named Fizzy.

"I don't think I really… fit in," responded Gar, taking a moment to search for the right word.

"Oh, sure you do!" Terra was quick to respond. "You're weird like them, you're perverted like them, you-"

"Pull people's pants down like them?" Gar's hands flew protectively to the waist of his navy khakis.

"Gosh, you baby," said Terra. "Fizzy didn't pull your pants down. She just _tried_ to. And the only people who saw were me, Rae," Raven blushed, "and Mack." Joseph Mack, called Mack, was the drum major in the Gotham Prep marching band. He was notorious for streaking, pretending to be gay, locking people in the drum closet together, and stuffing people into the large trashcan just inside the door of the band room. Terra was sure that she'd gotten her butt stuck in that thing about as many times as a diabetic gets blood drawn.

" Okay," said Gar at last. "I'll come to band. Just protect me from them. Please. I beg of you." Little did he know what things would go on in that room during sixth period.

* * *

"What's that smell?" Gar's nose wrinkled as he walked warily into the band room. 

"You mean the mustard?"

It was sixth period, and Terra, Raven, and Gar were headed into the chamber of insanity known as band. Fortunately, the room had been rid of any visible evidence of the Mustard Incident™, but the smell still lingered like a blanket of tangy fog.

"Hey, Gar!" said a sudden voice from the right as a tiny girl with her red hair in two braids catapulted herself over the arm of a ratty sofa and directly into Gar's line of movement. This was the dreaded Fizzy, and she was accompanied by her cronies: a taller, black-haired girl with moderate acne and a baseball cap that read, "Kiss Me, I'm Not Irish", and an extremely skinny, bleach blonde girl with the mother lode of braces.

"Uhhh…" Gar looked nervously at Terra, as if in search of an answer.

What happened next was so incredibly bizarre that Gar was not sure if he had witnessed the chain of events correctly. Terra opened her mouth to say something to Fizzy, but was interrupted when the door to a closet across the room swung open, and out came a short, stocky boy with a buzz cut, followed by a tall and rather hot boy with long, brown hair and who was wearing nothing from the waist down but a pair of skintight, white boxer shorts. As in, the kind of underwear where you can see everything underneath them. Gar felt faintly scarred.

"Mack pantsed me!" The latter of the two whined just as a shriek came from outside in the hallway, followed by a cry of, "You are gonna give me that machete back in 5…4…3…2…". The countdown was cut off when the supposed holder of the machete, a short boy with auburn hair and a camo jacket, charged into the room, machete in hand, whacking away at thin air. He was followed by a redhead whom Gar recognized as Edmund Wymark, called Dash.

Gar felt something heavy hit his knees, and blacked out for a moment. When he regained full eyesight, he was somehow lodged in the trash can. How it happened, no one would ever know.

"C'mon, let's get you out of there," said Terra, knocking the trash can onto the floor so Gar could wriggle his way out. Fortunately, he was both skinny and a guy (It was near impossible to find a guy with a big enough butt to get stuck in the trash can. But girls, who were more gifted in the hind regions, like Raven for example, had many a time been known to get their butts lodged in various objects in the band room), so it was fairly easy to get him out.

"I think that may have been my fault," said Dash from his position near the sofa. He was now holding Machete Boy in a death grip, and the latter was struggling to get free. "Sorry." Dash was a fairly good looking boy, but he talked really fast and seemed to be buzzing with caffeine. Gar vaguely wondered how many cups of coffee Dash drank daily.

_This is going to be a long day_, thought Gar.

* * *

Actually, the day wasn't nearly as long as Gar had anticipated, thanks to an incident in which Machete Boy (whose name turned out to really be Jordan) escaped from the band room and began a rampage down the hallway and out of the Fine Arts building, and several able-bodied members of the Gotham Prep marching band had to proceed in hunting him down. They found him hacking away at a manhole across campus with his blade. 

Back in the band room, during the twenty minute period of the search for Jordan, the remaining members of band managed to get Gar stuck in the trash can a total of three more times, as well as get Terra's sandal lodged in one of the foam ceiling tiles, and lock Raven in the drum closet with Dash for fifteen minutes. It would have been much shorter, but after a long decision, Mack now carried the key to the closet with him, and he was one of the able-bodied boys tracking down Jordan. Quite unfortunately for Raven, this meant that she had to stay in the closet until they found and brought back Jordan. While Dash seemed to enjoy this, Raven was in the borderline of stabbing him with a snare drum stand.

When Mack returned later, Jordan draped over his shoulder and the machete nowhere to be seen, the key was immediately retrieved and used to let the captives out of the closet. The two appeared in the doorway in a matter of seconds, and while Raven looked rather red-faced and angry, Dash took a more casual approach, and jokingly pretended to be pulling on his pants as he stepped into the room. This brought a few unneeded remarks from fellow band-goers, and a few choice words from Raven.

Unfortunately, Gar missed the entire event, as he had not only been stuffed into the trash can this time, but also rolled out into the hallway in his new plastic cocoon. No one saw this happen, and therefore had no idea where he was for several minutes. They discovered him around the end of class when Scott Russell, the hot streaking guy from before, somehow managed to get a ninja star lodged in the band room door. He went to retrieve it, and henceforth spotted Gar rolling around like a worm on the tile floor, shouting like no tomorrow. It was determined that they had not heard him yelling thanks to the Destiny's Child CD blasting from the stereo inside the room, courtesy of Fizzy.

* * *

"Why do I get the strong feeling that everyone in that class is insane?" 

It was after sixth period, and Terra, Raven, and Gar were leaving band through the large double doors in the front of the Fine Arts building and heading back to the general direction of their dorms.

"Because they are," said Terra, answering Gar's question. Beside the blonde, Raven was busy attempting to remove uncooked pasta (long story) from her Birkenstocks. To do so, she was hopping on her right foot so not to get her socked left foot wet. However, she promptly lost balance and toppled over, landing squarely on top of Gar with a squeak.

"Beautiful," commented Terra, looking down at her two best friends, who now more resembled a tangle of limbs than actual people. Band could make even the most collected person clumsy and vague, as could be seen here.

"Sorry," said Raven with a blush as she pulled herself off of Gar. Her skirt was twisted and her shoe had somehow ended up several yards away.

"No problem," replied Gar in a dreamy voice, combing his fingers through his light brown hair. "No problem…"

It was then that Terra's scheming mind began to formulate a plan. Kori had eagerly told the entire story of how Vick bet that Rob and Kori would end up together, and Terra was getting an idea.

"You two are pathetic," she began, crossing her fingers mentally that this would go swimmingly.

"What do you mean?" replied Raven. _Mega-pathetic. _

"Really," continued Terra. "Just look at Kori and Rob." Raven and Gar both stopped in their tracks at his remark. "They've had crushes on each other for years, and this year they finally realized it." The two didn't like where this was going.

"I don't know what you're-" Raven was cut off by Terra.

"Don't act like you two don't know what I mean," said Terra. "I mean, you're always around each other. And Rae, you always look happiest around Gar. Don't deny it. You're practically giddy compared to how you were last year-"

It was now that Raven grabbed Terra's wrist. Gar kept walking, oblivious to the fact that Raven now held Terra in a death grip several feet behind.

"Shut up," hissed Raven in a near-silent whisper. "I'll admit, you know what you're talking about. I don't know how, but you got it right. Now shut up about it." There was an unearthly silence in the parking lot, and Terra was sure she blacked out for a moment. However, when she regained full brain function, Raven was darting across campus, towards the dorms.

"Gee, Terra," said Gar. "What did you say to her?"

"Nothing that wasn't true…"

* * *

It was Wednesday afternoon, and on the other side of campus from the Fine Arts building, a rarity was occurring, something not recorded yet in the course of history. 

Vick Stone was alone.

Since Rob had detention, Kori had a huge load of pre-calculus homework, and the other three in the group were nowhere to be found, Vick was left alone for one afternoon on his life.

This was precisely why he found himself pacing the parking lot to the right of the football field, taking in the afternoon like a sunbather, minus the bikini, thank goodness.

"What am I doing back here?" he asked himself quietly. He really didn't know the answer to that question. The parking lot had just seemed like a quiet place to go and be bored by himself, since he had completed all his homework during class.

Turning his attention towards the football practice field, Vick sighed. He had been hoping to go out for football and make something of his sports obsession, but since being on the football team required getting forms signed by his parents, Vick had a problem: his dad. Mr. Stone had never approved of his son's love for sports, and had often pressured him to pursue the family career and be a doctor. Terry Stone was a doctor, and his wife Nia was a nurse. Even Vick's only brother, Josh (age nine), wanted to be a doctor.

_What is the world coming to?_, thought Vick, glancing down at the overly green field. There were several figures down there, belonging to what seemed to be girls. Cheerleading tryouts, no doubt. Vick watched with growing disgust as they paraded across the area in their short shorts and tank tops. Normally, he was way into girls of any type, but cheerleaders were the one type he couldn't stand. He would bet his allowance that Katherine Moth was somewhere down among those preppy little-

_BAM! _

Vick was so lost in thought about his hatred towards cheerleaders that when something ran into him, he hardly noticed until whomever it was started shrieking her head off.

"Gosh," she fumed. "Who do you think you _are_!"

"Watch where you're goin', why don't you?" Vick said right back at the same time. He looked down at the culprit. She was actually close to his height, which was rare, considering how tall he was. She was dark skinned, and wore black Soffees and a grey hooded sweatshirt. On her feet were tennis shoes, and her black hair was relaxed and put into a high ponytail. Her dark eyes were narrowed at Vick, which surely wasn't a good sign.

"I don't know who you think you are, Sparky," said the girl, with a snort. "But you don't just go running into girls in parking lots without a 'sorry', you hear?"

"Did you just call me 'Sparky'?" Vick's nostrils flared with anger. No one used pet names on him and got away with it. "And it wasn't me who was running. It was you." It was then that they both heard a voice projected through the loudspeaker down on the practice field.

"Cox, Beverly? Are you here? Cox, Beverly?"

"Oh, look what you've done!" said "Cox, Beverly". "You've made me late to cheerleading tryouts!"

Vick couldn't help but snigger. "You're name is Beverly?" he asked with a smirk.

"Cox, Beverly" looked back with a death glare. "It's Bee. Not Beverly," she shouted out. "Bee Cox. And you?"

"Vick Stone," Vick replied with a wink as Bee nodded and ran off to be preppy with her cheerleader friends.

_Well,_ thought Vick as he turned to head up the walkway back to the dorms. _Maybe all cheerleaders aren't' too bad.

* * *

_

After fleeing the parking lot outside the Fine Arts building, Raven had run immediately back to the dorms, in high hopes of grabbing some much needed alone time in her room. However, Kori was in there, doing her homework and listening to Vanessa Carlton, so Raven pretended to be stopping by to grab her chapstick (of all things), and promptly ran back out without another word.

Raven ran to the only place she could think of to go and be alone. She ran faster than she ever had before, on legs that no longer felt connected to her body. And when she got to her destination, she broke down and cried.

It was a small clearing off of the nature trail, quite a ways behind the boys' dorm, such that no one could see her out of their back window. The trees were thick, but let in the right amount of sun, filtering through the dusty, green leaves. It reminded her of her home in Ventura. There was a sliver of roof outside her bedroom window where she sat often to watch the waves crash on the nearby beach and be alone.

She had come here often during the past three years, to read, write, or do homework, and occasionally just to think. Now, as she sank down on the deserted bench near the fallen, bug-infested tree that hadn't been there last school year, she didn't need to think. She just wanted to clear her head.

What Terra had said back in the parking lot had been mean. Of course, Terra didn't know what she was doing. She had most likely seen what happened with Kori and Rob, and guessed that Raven and Gar would be that easy to get together. The truth was, Raven wanted it as much as anybody. She'd had a huge crush on the skinny, vegetarian since about the end of the sixth grade, and never told anyone. However, now she second guessed her wishes. What if Gar didn't like her that way? What if he found out and shunned her, just when they were getting to be friends after Gar's year-long absence?

And how did Terra find out? Was Raven being that obvious? Or did Terra have some supernatural power that Raven didn't know about?

Raven was so carried away with her thoughts that she didn't even see Kori until the redhead was about two feet away from her and then, she fell off the bench from shock.

"Kori? Wha...what are you doing here?" Raven stuttered, and her voice came out small and high-pitched.

" Never mind that," said Kori with a smile. "Why are you crying? Is something wrong?" Kori helped Raven off of the ground and back onto the bench. Raven's eyes were red, and her hair was frizzy around the hairline and around the elastic holding her hair back it its usual ponytail.

"Just…" Raven almost said, "Just nothing", but something stopped her. Kori was persistent. She wouldn't get bored or frustrated and leave. She would keep on asking until she got the story out of Raven.

"It was something Terra said," answered Raven softly. Kori put her arm around the violet-haired girl.

"What did she say that made you upset?" asked Kori politely, not pushing her friend to answer.

"She…" Raven was having trouble getting this to come out all the way. "She was just talking, not trying to be mean at all," began Raven. "But she was talking about you and Rob, and said… she said that she doesn't see why me and Gar aren't together as well. She says that we are perfect for each other."

Kori nearly squealed with joy. "Are you saying that you have a crush on Gar?" she asked. Kori was beaming, and Raven found it hard to lie. So, the truth came out.

"Yes," she answered in a very small voice. "Yes, Kori. I do."

"You what?" At first, Raven thought that maybe Kori hadn't heard her, but when she was the look in Kori's eyes, she saw otherwise. Kori was trying to get her to say it out loud.

"I just said it," she hissed, suddenly conscious that this clearing might not be so secret after all. She was getting the strange feeling that someone was watching her.

"Well," replied Kori. "Say it again. Just do it."

"Why?"

"_Just do it!_"

"_WHY?" _

"Because."

It was obvious that Raven wasn't going to win this argument.

"Alright," she said softly. "I like Gar."

"You what?"

This was getting old. "I like Gar," said Raven loudly.

"Then why did Terra's words make you upset?" Raven had thought that this was over and done, so this question caught her off-guard. She had to think for a moment.

"I… I don't want him to know, I guess," she answered vaguely. "I don't want him to know, because I'm afraid he won't feel the same."

Kori giggled knowingly, and it scared Raven. "I'm sure he does, Rae. Why wouldn't he?"

Raven wasn't really sure how to answer this question. In fact, she had never thought about it before. She knew she wasn't the prettiest person alive, but she wasn't ugly, and she knew it as well as anyone.

"So what do I do?" asked Raven. "I'm not good with boys, and you know that." She slumped down on the bench while Kori took a moment to think.

"Wear your hair down tomorrow," answered Kori after a few seconds. "Wear nicer shoes, not those dirty old flats." She motioned to the ancient ballet flats on Raven's feet. "Don't listen to what Terra tells you about him not noticing the little things. And most of all don't worry. Let the future unfold by itself."

Several minutes later, after Kori had left, Raven was still seated on the bench, a smile on her face. With perfect silence, she reached up and took the elastic out of her hair, enjoying the feeling of her violet hair brushing the back of her neck. Maybe things would work out in the end. Maybe it wasn't the end of the world.

_This place sure is beautiful_, thought Raven, looking up at the sun through the tops of the trees and smiling. Maybe being happy wasn't that hard.

* * *

**Okay, so please review now. And I'd like to say one thing before you do so: pretty much all events of band were not made up, as in I was speaking from experience. So here are the things in this story so far that are not made up:**

**1) the catfish thing from the second chapter**

**2) the machete **

**3) people asking people out for $10**

**4) getting things lodged in ceiling, such as shoes**

**5) the thing with Dash pulling his pants up**

**6) getting stuck in trash can and rolled into hallway**

**So yeah. I lead an interesting life, as the above list shows. **

**Please review, and I'll have the fourth chapter up as soon as I write it. **

**-Giz**


	4. Bete Noire

**OH MY GOSH, I'm so sorry that it took so dang long for me to update, but I had horrible writer's block. I seriosly had to write and rewrite this chapter, like, eight times, so I hope y'all understand. I won't bore you anymore. Here's chapter four. I know it's a bit disconnected and detached in places, and it doesn't all fit together, and Raven and Gar are both pretty OCC compared to the rest of the story, but this was the best I could do. So I hope you enjoy. And the quote at the beginning is from one of my favorite songs of alltime, just letting you know. **

* * *

Chpt. 4: Bete Noire 

"_Maybe I'll admit it, I'm a little bitter,_

_Everybody loves her, but I just wanna hit her…"_ -Saving Jane, "Girl Next Door"

* * *

It was a warm, muggy, Friday morning in early September, more than two weeks after the infamous Band Introduction™ and though it was only 7:02 AM, not all were sleeping. Out on the football field, a group of dedicated, hard-working Gotham Prep Vikings were already practicing their over-achieving little butts to an early death. Were they the football team? No. The soccer team? Not quite. 

"Markov, pick up that bass drum!" shouted Mack from where he stood in the middle of the Gotham Prep drumline, playing his snare drum like no tomorrow. Off to his right, Terra attempted to do as she was told, and ended up dropping the whole drum on the dew-covered grass instead. The drum beat immediately stopped, and all eyes turned to the blonde as she struggled to pick up her instrument.

"Pick that up, and let's take it from the top," ordered Mack, brushing off this common setback.

"I can't _do_ this today," whispered Terra, turning to Gar beside her. Gar was skillfully twirling his drumstick in his hand. Mack had tried Gar out with at least ten different instruments, included but not limited to the trumpet, clarinet, and snare drum, before finally placing him on the quads, which he proved to be quite a master of.

"Keep trying, then," he replied. As soon as he turned back around, Terra took her mallet and tried with a great amount of concentration to twirl it on her fingers. However, Terra lacked coordination, and her drumstick promptly went flying off in some direction unknown. It hit the grass and, oddly, began rolling. It stopped several feet away, right at the feet of some one wearing three inch stiletto boots (They were Lumaini, and had supposedly cost one hundred and ten dollars, according to Maya), and a short, leather skirt (it was a Friday, a dress-down day).

"Well, hello, Terra," said Maya Parrish, taking another step onto the grass, swishing her black hair over her shoulder like she was some kind of supermodel. Terra choked as a wave of perfume hit her like a missile, clogging her senses, and very possibly her lungs and vital arteries.

"What the heck is _she_ doing out here?" asked Anna Kole, the blonde girl with the braces, who was to Terra's left, with a set of cymbals. Terra shrugged and watched as Maya made her way across the drumline, and as Anna got her braces stuck on her lip, and began struggling and bleeding, trying to get it off.

It was then that something entirely unexpected happened. Maya walked over to where the snare drummers (Mack, Raven, and Dash) stood silent. Well, except for Dash.

"Hey, Baby!" he said as Maya approached him, smiling like an idiot. Dash was smiling like an idiot, rather. Maya looked rather sexy in her leather apparel and red lipstick, nothing like an idiot. Dash was, contrarily, dressed in blue jeans and a black shirt that read, "Who are you and why are you reading my shirt?". Typical Dash clothes.

Drumline practice sort of fell apart after Maya dragged Dash away to places unknown.

"They probably went to make wild and passionate love behind the football concession stand," suggested an oddly calm Raven as she walked over to Terra and Gar while everyone else filed off the field. Since it was a dress-down day, Raven was dressed in a modest, denim skirt and a black shirt. Following Kori's advice, she had started wearing her hair nicer, down or in nice buns, but because of the heat today, she had been forced to resort to a high ponytail to avoid being drowned in her own sweat.

Despite the sweat and ponytail, though, she still managed to look petal fresh and rather sexy.

Terra, on the other hand, was having a bad hair day, so her blonde hair had ended up in the usual ponytail, with several limp pieces hanging around her ears. She had gone with army green cargos and a red swim team T-shirt, which was not only the opposite of petal fresh and sexy, but it also appeared completely unflattering on her stick-thin figure, or lack thereof. Life could be so cruel.

* * *

"Can you _believe_ those two?" Terra was still enraged as the group of three walked into the cafeteria several minutes later. "I mean, I thought Dash had too much integrity to date someone as manipulative and malevolent as Maya." She spat the words "manipulative" and "malevolent" with as much spite as anyone could possibly muster. 

"…Where in the world did you find those words?" asked Raven after a few seconds of silence. Terra ignored her.

"Don't you just think it's a little fishy that Maya suddenly wants to go out with someone as free spirited and weird as Dash?" Terra was practically fuming that no one agreed with her idea as the three sat down at their usual table. Kori, Rob, and Vick were already seated and enjoying a wide variety of complete breakfasts. Well, two were, at least.

"What's eating you?" asked Raven as she took her usual seat beside Kori. The redhead was crouched unstylishly over a thick but neat notebook labeled (in thick but neat Sharpie) "Algebra II".

"I have a huge test today," Kori whined, while yawning. An incredible task to take on. "I studied and studied last night after you guys went to bed, but I still feel pretty not good about it."

"Pretty not good?" repeated Gar to himself as Raven spoke up.

"You kept on studying?" Raven was clearly appalled. "Kor, you studied for that thing for five hours _before_ me and Terra fell asleep. You've studied enough. Believe me." Though the girl seemed a bit more relieved to hear this statement, she, all the same, flipped to another page in her textbook and began the process all over again.

"This needs salt," commented Terra as she sat down at the table with a plate of scrambled eggs. The past few mornings, she had been trying to eat a healthier breakfast to keep her energized long enough to get through English, in which they were watching _Romeo and Juliet_. Terra had a crush on Romeo, and henceforth had made it her goal to stay awake during it. The first day, she had slept through it and been rather disappointed to learn from Raven that Romeo was worth the wait and the bad, classical music.

Unfortunately for Terra, this new breakfast diet ruled out cookies and snack cakes, as well as Terra's favorite, fruit snacks. She especially loved the ones shaped like dinosaurs. Several boxes of them were still stashed at the bottom of her suitcase.

As Terra reached for the salt, she had the misfortune to elbow her bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper (she was still under the impression that since it was "diet" it was healthy), which tipped dangerously to the side, as if it were part of some balancing act. What was even more unfortunate was that the aforementioned bottle, instead of falling towards the table, fell, landing in Terra's lap and pouring its contents down one leg in a sort of small waterfall of brown liquid and carbon bubbles.

"Crap," moaned Terra, scooting her chair backwards, which was also a mistake, as the bottle now rolled onto the floor and proceeded in a kind of crazy spree across the stretch of tile floor underneath the table. It stopped at Gar's feet, where the remaining Dr. Pepper was depleted in a raging river of carbonated beverage. "Hand me the napkins," she ordered Rob, who was sitting nearest the small, black napkin holder. Napkins in hand, Terra made the journey across the dining hall to the Ladies' room.

Deciding it would look weird to be dabbing her pants leg with multiple pieces of disposable napery, Terra opted to perform the deed in the large, handicapped stall. No sooner had she locked the stall door than she heard the bathroom door swing open, and at least three people file in. One was wearing stiletto boots by the sound of it. Quite possibly leather ones. One hundred and ten dollar ones from Lumaini.

"Am I a genius or _what_?" laughed the heinous voice of Maya Parrish. Terra held her breath and clutched the napkins in her hand like no tomorrow.

"Why Dash, though?" That was Carina, a rich, snobby girl who could hardly add and subtract, and didn't deserve to be in high school at all.

Terra strained her ears to hear the conversation, which was proving difficult. One of the three was spraying at least a few gallons of something that smelled strongly of vanilla, and Maya was unzipping her rather expensive faux snake skin Liz Claiborne makeup bag (she had been flaunting it since she bought it on a weekend trip home a few days ago), causing a lot of commotion to hear over.

"Because of that Slager girl," Terra was sure she heard Maya say. Were her ears already deceiving her at a young age?

"She pays him an awful lot of attention," Maya continued. Her voice had changed to being slow and quiet, which meant she was most likely applying mascara. "Don't tell me you haven't noticed."

"Well, I don't pay much attention to _them_," responded a girl whom Terra knew to be Shauna, the third of Maya's cronies. Shauna was a horrible, racist, gossip-lover. She knew everything about everyone. Raven had once commented that that was why her blonde hair was so puffy. Her head was filled with secrets. This was immediately following an event back in eighth grade when Shauna had started a rumor that Raven's mother was a hooker, which of course she wasn't, but Raven had always hated Shauna after that.

"Well," continued Maya, smacking her glossed lips. "I think she might have the hots for him. And I'll do anything I can to make her life a living nightmare. You know that as well as I do."

Terra tried the best she could not to gasp loudly or anything like that. She was now aware that her finger nails were digging into the palms of her hands, but she didn't care. She had to tell Raven.

Terra almost grabbed the door latch and swung it open, but quickly remembered that Maya and her cronies were waiting on the other side, unaware of her presence.

"Like my shoes?" asked Carina. "They're Jessica Simpson." Obviously, all talk of Raven and Dash had ceased, and Shauna and Maya were now crowded around Carina's sandals like vultures around a tasty carcass.

It wasn't long before they left, and Terra stumbled out of the stall. She had long since forgotten her pants dilemma, and hurried out of the bathroom without second though, napkins still clutched in the palm of her hand.

* * *

It was a couple of class periods before Terra could get Raven alone to tell her about what Maya had said in the bathroom that morning. Every time Raven was in speaking range, Gar was there too, and Terra didn't feel right gossiping in front of him. Well, this wasn't exactly gossip as much as it was vital information that could change the course of history (kind of), but Terra still felt uncomfortable saying anything about it in front of Gar. 

Anyways, Terra approached Raven as they were entering Health class for fourth period.

"Rae?" Terra said as the two sat down at their usual seats near the back of the room near the reproductive diagrams. Despite the fact that this classroom doubled as a classroom for Mr. Lewis' World History class, the diagrams were up all the time, causing a bit of a commotion in World History.

"You know when I went to the bathroom this morning during breakfast to get that Dr. Pepper off of my pants after I knocked over the bottle?" Terra said it all rather fast, as though the words would disappear if she didn't say them quickly enough. Raven, in return, just stared.

"Yes, I remember that," she replied, pulling her homework (a crossword puzzle of several illegal drugs) out of her notebook.

"Well," Terra was beginning to say, but was interrupted by a voice so vile it made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

"So, what is it that you freaks talk about over here?" Maya sat down casually in the desk beside Raven and began twirling her black hair around her fingers in a completely repulsive way that reminded Terra of a chimp picking insects out of its baby's fur.

Raven looked Terra in the eye, as if to say, "Oh boy, here it comes", or maybe, "Quick. Hold her head and I'll kick her. Make sure she doesn't bite me." Or maybe it was just saying, "If those aren't gel inserts, I might be sick." It was one of the three for sure.

"Terra, dear," said Maya, making both girls want to projectile vomit. "Would you mind if I had a word with Raven? Alone?" Terra was on the brink of saying "No" and punching Maya in the nose, but the look on Raven's face told her that violence may not be the answer now. Making the smart decision, she turned her back and took a seat a few feet away.

"So Raven," Maya began, her voice lowering and her eyes narrowing. "I'm sure you heard about me and Dash, right?" Raven raised one eyebrow and turned to face Maya.

"Yes, I heard… and saw," she replied. Raven didn't quite like where this was going.

"So you aren't jealous?" Maya gasped, leaning in to look Raven in the eye. The latter was choked with a wave, or more of a tsunami, of vanilla body spray. Her eyes watered and endangered her mascara, while also widening in question and shock.

"Wha… what do you mean?" asked Raven, carefully wiping her eyes to avoid staining her cheeks black and giving her a football-player look. Hardly sexy.

"But everyone's been saying that you like him," Maya argued.

"Why would I like _Dash_?" Raven was appalled, obviously. She'd never heard this, and she _definitely_ hadn't said it herself. "I don't like him."

"Oh, that's right," answered Maya in a dangerously kind voice. "You like that Logan boy. Garfield, I think it was?" Raven nodded dryly. She opened her mouth, but Maya kept speaking.

"The truth is," she said. "I know a lot about people, and I've heard that dear little Garfield doesn't like you back."

Raven's head promptly began pounding in her ear canals. She felt her heart explode. She died and rose again several times in a row from unknown circumstances.

However, this was well before Raven realized that there was no way that Maya could possibly know this about Gar. That came later that day while Raven was still wallowing in misery and concern on her part.

"He doesn't?" was all Raven could manage to squeak out for the time being.

"I'm sorry things with the opposite sex aren't working out for you this time, Rae," Maya said in false sympathy, emphasizing the use of Raven's pet name. It was completely repulsive.

"Better luck next year," said Maya before walking away, leaving Raven staring at the fake wood of the desk in front of her.

* * *

Raven stayed fairly quiet for the rest of the class, speaking only when she was asked for a pen by Terra, and again when the teacher, Coach Durbin, informed her that if she didn't close her mouth, she would get drool on her DUI prevention workbook. 

She was beginning to realize now that Maya couldn't possibly have known what she was talking about. People like Maya didn't pay attention to people like Gar and Raven. It was a rule of the world. However, the feeling of uncertainty remained, haunting Raven. She tried her best to keep her mind on why not to do drugs, but it kept wandering. What if Maya was right? What if Gar was actually in love with Terra or someone like that? Or what if Maya and Gar were having an affair in spite of the five inch height difference? If so, Gar would have to stand on a box or something whenever they made out. There was one good side, though: If they got married and had kids, they (the kids, that is) would be average height, and not have to stand on boxes to make out with their future boyfriends/girlfriends.

Okay, Raven's mind was running away from her now. It was almost calming to snap out of the reverie and back into the Health class lesson.

Lunch wasn't much better, either. Raven couldn't stop watching Gar from across the table and looking to make sure he didn't look at Terra for a moment too long. She vaguely wondered what she would do if he did. Perhaps she would leap heroically across the table and confess her undying love to Gar while Terra looked on stunned. Or maybe she would let it pass and then go all assassin on Terra later. But she couldn't murder anyone. She could barely hold a gun, as she had learned that time her mom's guy friend, Coleman, had taken her and his daughter hunting and Raven had dropped the gun, causing it to discharge and blow a hole through a nearby tree, beginning an aerial stampede of small birds, many of which promptly crapped on the party of three and their clothing.

Raven's mind was wandering again. She was snapped back into reality as she heard Kori squeal loudly.

"I think I aced my test!" she nearly yelled, causing the other five members of the table to fall out of their chairs. Her hair was glowing again in an unnatural manner.

"Sheesh," said Vick, rubbing his head in the vicinity of his earlobes. "You sure studied enough."

"You think?" Kori's eyes got wide, and the green of them blended with the green in her beaded earrings and matching necklace. Her friends nodded, nearly blinded by her eyes. Things got dangerous when Kori got excited. Her eyes rivaled the brightness of the sun. Sunglasses were almost necessary in her presence.

"Rae, pass the mustard," said Gar, eyeing his hamburger. Raven didn't move. She just sat staring at her iced tea.

"Rae?" Gar's eyebrows wrinkled. "Rae-ven?" He drew out her name, and the violet-haired girl finally snapped into attention, averting her eyes from her beverage, and looking around.

Vick, who was seated beside Raven, grabbed the mustard and flung it across the table to Gar before continuing in his discussion with Rob about some X-box game that most likely involved lots of gore and killing.

"I'm goin' to get more tea," muttered Raven, standing up from the table. She left her tea sitting beside her salad.

Halfway across the lunchroom to the lunch line, Raven realized that she'd forgotten her purse, which held her lunch pass. She made a beeline for the restroom, but soon heard the noise of someone following her. She picked up her pace, which proved to be hard to do in her denim skirt, which kept flipping up in the back. She was just feeling the triumph of making it to the lunchroom door without flashing anybody when a voice stopped her.

"Rae, what's up with you?" It was Gar, and he sounded frustrated if anything. Raven couldn't face him, so she stayed turned around.

"Nothing," she lied, taking another few strides. She cursed the builders who made the bathroom so dang far from the cafeteria. Thanks to them, Gar caught her a few feet away from the door. He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around.

"Something's wrong," he said, striking Raven as out-of-character for the usual clown. "I don't care if you can tell me or not, just please stop being so distant and depressed. I…I'm worried for you."

When Raven finally turned to look at him, something happened. Her eyes started filling up, and her hands were shaking by her sides.

"I wish I could tell you," she found herself saying. "But I can't."

Then, she turned and stormed off into the bathroom, where she wiped her eyes and pretended that she had just told Gar everything instead of running off like the idiot she was.

* * *

There is a French phrase, _bete noir _("bay-tay-noo-are"), that means "object of dislike". For some reason, Raven thought of these words every time she saw Maya for the next few weeks or so. Maya seemed to feel the need to torment Raven every waking second they were thrust into the confines of the classroom. Whether it was snapping the back of her bra, calling her a punk, or kicking her in the leg with her stilettos, Maya always seemed to be acting like she was part of some "We Hate Raven" organization. Raven vaguely imagined a some pens and jackets that read "W.H.R.: Come hate Raven with us". 

Okay, over-active imagination.

It was third period. Raven tried her hardest to concentrate on the World History review sheet on the desk in front of her. They were always ridiculously easy, but today, Raven's mind was on other things.

Beside her, Terra chewed on the end of her pen, and in front of Raven, Gar sat in concentration, stuck on a question about the Assyrian empire. Raven listened as he flipped frantically through page after page of notes. She had gotten that answer several geological ages ago, and Gar was five whole pages of notes away from finding it.

"Yo, people," said Mr. Lewis, the teacher. He was a short, stocky man with curly black hair and pale skin. He was the only adult who could pull off slang and things like that. "Turn in your sheets if you're done, do them for homework if not. The bell's about to ring."

Raven shoved her paper into her World History binder and put the binder back in her bookbag. She didn't wait for Gar and Terra to follow. She just left.

She had been doing a lot of that lately, leaving without waiting for her friends. She spent a lot more time alone, and even in the dorms at night she listened to her iPod or something. She still talked to her friends, but one thought never left her mind: _Does Gar really not like me?_

Raven got to her locker in record time without any confrontations with Maya. This was a good day, she could tell already. _Put World History binder in, take Health binder out._ The whole locker ritual had become mechanic for Raven. She hardly thought before rushing back on to class. Anything to avoid Maya.

What she didn't avoid, however, was running straight into a mid-height, red-headed boy walking in the opposite direction as her.

"Hey, Raven," said Dash, running a hand through his unkempt hair. Today he wore black Converses with his uniform. He had gotten his braces off on his last weekend visit home, so his teeth were white and straight rather than tinted odd colors from the rubber bands on his braces. Raven couldn't help but notice that he had nearly perfect skin, and freckles in all the right places…

"Hi Dash," she was a bout to say, but a bone-chilling voice stopped her dead in her tracks.

"Are you talking to my boyfriend, Slager?" asked Maya. Her voice wasn't angry, just a bit impatient. Today, her black hair was in a high ponytail. It was repulsive how it looked good on her, and looked like an actual horse's tail when worn on Raven. It was just the cruelty of the world.

_He was talking to me, Parrish, _Raven imagined herself saying. _I guess he just finds me more interesting and attractive than you. Better luck next year._ That wasn't what came out of her mouth, though. What she actually said was much dumber. Not that it didn't make an effect, but it definitely made Maya mad, which wasn't a good thing exactly.

"Yes, Maya," she felt herself saying. "I _was_ talking to your boyfriend." Then, she turned on one heel and walked away. If Maya'd had a gun at that second, Raven felt sure that the girl would have used it. The dagger-like stare was almost enough to make Raven cringe as she darted away to Health.

* * *

It was a good thing that Gar wasn't in Raven's fourth period class, or else he would have gotten a nice look at his alleged punk friend being shot down by death glares. Maya was dealing them out the entire class while Raven scribbled away at her respiratory system crossword puzzle, most likely getting most of the answers wrong. 

"What is that girl's deal?" Terra wanted to know as she wrote "artery" in one of the blanks on her paper. Raven winced. Arteries had nothing to do with breathing, and it pained her to think that Terra could be dumb enough not to think of this.

"I don't know," said Raven in her smallest voice possible. Maya was laughing at something Carina had said, now. Her laugh was hideous. _She_ was hideous. No, Maya _wasn't_ hideous. She was just too pretty.

Maya was writing something on a slip of paper, now. She passed it to Carina, who gave it to Shauna, who passed it to a girl with red hair, who gave it to a tall girl with glasses, who whispered something to the girl beside her, who picked up the paper and tossed it. It landed squarely on Raven's desk. Glancing across the room, Raven saw Maya nod, and return to her conversation with Carina.

* * *

Raven waited until she was seated on her bed, safe in her dorm, that afternoon to open the note. Terra was in the shower, and Kori was at the paper shop, buying some note cards. Above the sound of pounding water from the bathroom, Raven could hear her head pounding as she unfolded the note. It still smelled like Maya. 

It was written in big, bubbly, black letter. Raven felt her heart stop as she read the words. _I will get you_, it read. _You'll regret laying your grimy hands near my boyfriend. And I swear on my life that you will never, as long as I can do anything about it, be with your dearest Gar, understand? Good. I have power, more than you could know, so be careful in the future. I know who to pay up with to make your life miserable. _

Underneath the signature, there was one more line. _P.S: Your hair in a high ponytail makes you look like a horse. Thought I'd let you know. Why don't you try wearing it in spikes, or however you witches are wearing their hair these days. _

"Rae?" Terra was calling now. "D'ya know where my nail file went?"

Raven glanced at where the aforementioned object was lying in a pile of junk on Terra's nightstand, but didn't say anything yet.

It was exciting to have an enemy. If there was one theing Raven was good at, it was tormenting people.

And if Maya wanted a fight, then Raven only had three words for her: _Bring it on_.

* * *

**Okay, done with chapter 4. I have no idea how many chapters there will be in all, but I'm already working on chapter five. Since I have a good bit of it typed, I think I'll start doing little previews of the next chapters:**

Chapter Five: Kori the "Smooth Criminal"

Description: When Kori accidentally steals and forgets to return the wallet of eigth grader Anna Kole, she gets caught and sent to a dull guidance couseling class in which she gets a taste of the Gotham Prep criminal lifestyle.

**I have about a page typed so far. Unfortunately, I'm really busy, and it may take longer than I think to get it up. Well, that's all for now. **

**Oh, and just a note, the personalities of the popular girls in this story do not reflect the personalities of anyone at my school. The ones I know are nice. They don't threaten people. Just throwing that out there. **

**Oh, and there was some foreshadowing in this chapter, and it wasn't the note. Just throwing that out there too.**

**-Giz**

**Please review. **


	5. Kori the Smooth Criminal

**Ok, so here's chapter five. Sorry about the wait, but I've had a _huge_ Bible project for school to do, and on top of that, track and band, so I've been really busy.**

**So yeah, here it is. Hope you enjoy it!**

**:) -Giz**

* * *

Chpt. 5: Kori the "Smooth Criminal"

"_I don't have to be careful, I have a gun!"_ -Homer Simpson

* * *

It never would have happened if it weren't for Rob's Algebra 2 test. Seriously. If he hadn't put his huge notebook on the table, then the glass of Coke beside his huge plate of spaghetti would have never fallen over and spilled into Kori's lap. Kori would have never been forced to make a trip to the bathroom to get the worst of the stain out before it set in, and henceforth would have never found the wallet. 

"I'm sorry," called Rob as Kori walked away, but she waved it off.

"It's alright," she said, turning to face him, and it really was alright. Her jeans (it was dress-down day again) were at least a year old, and had seen all sorts of stains in their lifetime as pants, from mustard to split pea soup.

The bathroom was empty, which is partially why Kori noticed the wallet so easily. It was perched on one of the sink's edges, in danger of falling into the ceramic basin. It was made of blue leather, and was fairly large for a wallet. When Kori picked it up, it seemed to weigh a ton.

_What is _in_ here?_, she asked herself, opening the flap to see. There was a lunch pass with a picture of a skinny blonde. The name on it was Anna Kole. Also in the wallet was a photograph of a small boy in a pirate costume (He had Anna's hair, so he was most likely her brother), a picture of a dog, a handy horoscope card, and a garishly yellow card reminding Anna to come for a dentist appointment. In addition to this, there was a large amount of coins in one zipped pocket, and something bulky in the other. Kori investigated, and found an action figure of a caveman. One of its legs looked like it had hot-glued back on. In neat Sharpie, the word "Gnark" was written on the bottom of one of the feet. Kori was puzzled. She returned the figure to its place in the wallet and stuffed it in her pocket without thinking.

Returning to the lunchroom, Kori forgot about the wallet, as she was thrust into a developing plot involving Gar attempting to stuff grapefruit into his pants due to some dare initiated by Terra (He had managed to get four and counting into his pants. Vick and Terra were cheering him on, Rob was studying for Algebra and pretending not to notice, and Raven was looking embarrassed of her tablemates, like she might leap up at any moment and go join the jock table).

* * *

"I can't believe someone would do this to meeeeeeee!" 

It was sixth period on Friday, and Anna Kole was inconsolable. She had been since lunch, and everyone in her presence was, while pretending to be sympathetic, secretly growing more and more sick of her constant tears and wailing. The cause?

"Whatever sicko stole that kid's wallet is gonna pay for this," said Gar, rolling over on the bandroom sofa. His eardrums were beginning to throb.

"Amen," mumbled Terra. She was seated on the floor, her hands clamped over her ears. Since it was dress-down day, she was dressed in some Hollister blue jeans and a pink polo shirt. The pants were too long, and the shirt was definitely not her color, and the whole outfit made her look horribly wannabee, but no one had the heart to tell her any of that.

Raven didn't look wannabee at all. She actually looked quite sexy in some jeans that were just the right length and a dark violet shirt with a V-neck that was just the right color and matched her eyes. She was lounging on the other of the sofas, coolly listening to her MP3 player (Blink 182 by the sound of it) and ignoring Anna.

"I'll kill that good for nothing wallet stealer," Fizzy Slanistraus was saying. Her face was fierce enough to make anybody believe that she'd keep her death-promise. Alongside being a total pervert, Fizzy was also said to keep several items of weaponry stored underneath her bed in the room she shared with Anna and Ahava (the black haired girl with the "Kiss me, I'm not Irish" shirt). It was also said that she's once made her pet turtle go insane by using Chinese Water Torture on him in her own backyard.

"What was in that wallet that you're so upset about, anyways?" Dash asked Fizzy. Anna was too busy looking red and puffy to answer, so Fizzy took the liberty to do this for her.

"Gnark," she answered. "Her toy caveman. She's had him forever, and always has him with her."

"I knew I should have put him in my pocket instead of my wallet!" said Anna through sobs. "But since his leg came off that one time he went through the washing machine, I'm always afraid I'll forget again to take him out of my pants and his head or something will come off this time! Then how would he breathe?"

Anna went back into a sobbing fit, and Dash, clearly freaked out by Anna's devotion to this caveman action figure, walked away.

"Looks like someone forgot to take her happy pill," he muttered to Fizzy as he passed.

* * *

It was already unfortunate that Kori had left Anna's wallet in her pocket to begin with, but what was even more unfortunate was that she took it out Friday night and left it on top of her bookbag and, not thinking, later put it into her bookbag, letting it settle just beneath her extra pack of notebook paper and a pack of ballpoint pens, and it was soon forgotten entirely. 

However, most forgotten things are remembered again sooner or later, and Kori remembered the wallet again a week later, when her hand brushed up against it in third period study hall wile she was rummaging for her homework planner.

The blue leather looked unfamiliar to her, but when she glanced to the eighth grade half of class only to see Anna Kole scribbling something or another in some notebook, the whole wallet-on-sink thing came back to her.

Kori quickly formulated a plan to come up to Anna after class and casually say that she had found the wallet in one of the bathrooms that morning, and was now returning it. Her mind was in full swing, trying to think up a believable script, when Kori heard a shrill cry coming from Anna's direction.

"That's my wallet!" she shouted with incredible panache, and Kori saw her mistake: She should have put the wallet back in her bookbag before formulating her plan to return said wallet without suspicion.

Everyone turned to look at Kori, who was now staring, red-faced, at the wallet in her hand (Thankfully, Rob had gone to his locker, so he didn't see her sheer embarrassment).

"Anna, not so loud!" said Mrs. Garner in an overly loud voice. "Now what is it that you're screaming about?"

"She has my wallet!" Anna repeated, pointing at Kori. Every word felt like a bullet.

Mrs. Garner then motioned Kori and Anna out into the hallway, just as Kori suspected she would. The class burst into sheer hysteria the second the door closed. Kori was all too aware of Vick's confused stare as he paused his MP3 player to watch the three leave the room.

"Now explain to me how you came to acquire this young lady's wallet," said Mrs. Garner, after checking to make sure the wallet was really Anna's. Anna now held Gnark safely in her hand.

"I… found it, in a bathroom," Kori said. She swallowed hard, and her throat hurt a little. "A week ago." This wasn't sounding too good.

"So you kept it?" That was Anna, clearly shocked at this blatant act of delinquency.

"I meant to…" Kori trailed off at the sight of Mrs. Garner's unforgiving look.

This was how Kori ended up, against her will, in her way to the guidance counselor's office only moments later, a hall pass in hand. Her face was still red, matching her hair.

"Kori?" Kori froze at Rob's voice. He was at his locker, taking his time collecting the needed Government binder. "What're you doing?"

"N…Nothing," she said too fast. "Mrs. Garner sent me to the office for something, that's all." It hit her that her overly fast speech might prove to be suspicious to an extent.

"It's _not_ nothing, Kor," said Rob. "Why are you blushing like crazy?' He took the hall pass from Kori's hand.

"Guidance counselor? What the heck did _you_ do?" He was clearly appalled at the thought of his seemingly perfect girlfriend doing something worthy of the infamous guidance counselor.

"Iaccidentallystoleawallet," responded Kori, all as one word.

"Keep up the good work," said Rob with a smile as he headed back to class.

The guidance counselor's office smelled like chlorine, decided Kori as she stepped through the door approximately two minutes later after a ridiculously long trip to the water fountain. Her head was spinning as she entered the room. It was more of a classroom than an office. Seated at the desks in it were a handful of people Kori knew to be delinquents, most of which had black clothing, multiple piercings, or oddly colored hair, except for poor Ester Atkins, who was seated in the back, with her scant brown hair and Keds shoes.

It was funny to Kori that Raven fell under two of the three typical bad girl categories, but had never once entered this room. She broke the laws of stereotyping.

"Well, hello, Kori, dear," said the guidance counselor, Ms. Bell. Ms. Bell was a short, sort of round woman with brown curls and bland clothing. She talked really slow, and knew Kori for all of her academic achievements. Ms. Bell was also in charge of awards ceremonies, and had often handed Kori the said awards.

"Now, what are we in here for today, sweetie?" Ms. Bell didn't seem shocked by Kori's appearance in a discipline oriented atmosphere one bit, for some reason. Perhaps she had seen one too many good girls go bad and the thought of academic achievers committing crimes no longer bothered her.

"Accidental theft," Kori murmured, putting an emphasis on the word "accidental".

"How can you accidentally steal something?" asked a girl near the front of the classroom. She had ruby red hair, an eyebrow ring, and a black pinstriped tie instead of the usual blue one. Her valley-girl accent didn't match her attitude.

"Back to work, Dacia," said Ms. Bell, and Dacia obliged reluctantly.

"Here's your survey," the woman continued, and handed Kori a small packet. "Give it back to me when you finish, and you may return to class."

Kori took a seat next to Dacia and got to work. She picked a pen up off the floor, dusted it off on her shirt, and looked at the first question.

_Have you ever committed any sort of crime before?_ the paper was asking her in 12 pt. Times New Roman font. _No_, Kori wrote in the space provided. The ink came out chunky and not smooth at all, so Kori had to press harder, and ended up causing a blob of ink to come out on the paper.

_Have you ever thought about stealing something before?_ was the next question. Kori wrote another no in the blank.

Half an hour of no's later, Kori came to a question that read _Have you ever done drugs or consumed alcohol before?_. She remembered back in the summer before seventh grade, when Jessica had taken her to one of her parties, but that had only been one beer, and Kori had thrown up enough afterwards to know never to do in again. She lied and wrote another no.

_Do you suffer from split personality disorder?_ _No._

_Do you hear voices in your head? No. _

_Do people say your friends have bad influences on you? No._

_Do you follow organized religion? Yes. _

Kori performed a mental joy dance as she finished the packet and got up to return it to Ms. Bell. Several people, she noticed, were asleep. and Dacia had pulled out her iPod, and was listening to Linkin Park, by the sound of it.

"Am I done?" Kori asked quietly. "Do I go back to class now?"

Ms. Bell nodded. "Just don't forget to some back tomorrow.'

"Tomorrow?" Kori swallowed.

"Yes, dear." Ms. Bell said this in a manner that suggested that Kori should have known this all along. "Theft is an action punishable by a week, no more or no less, of me." She smiled a smile of evil, and dismissed Kori to third period.

_I hate that woman,_ Kori defiantly decided as she left through the door and entered the normal world yet again.

Lunch was strangely quiet that day. Terra was trying to finish a Biology worksheet before fifth period, and Gar was out talking to his Geometry teacher about some work he'd missed when he was out sick a couple of days before. Kori spent the biggest part of the time imagining herself with black hair and piercings, like her sister.

"So how was counseling?" asked Rob sometime while Kori was trying to decide whether she would rather have a tongue or nose piercing (She decided on tongue, since her nose was rather sensitive, and there was also the snot factor).

"Huh?" asked Kori, truly not knowing what her boyfriend was talking about.

"Counseling," he repeated. "How was it?"

"Fine," answered Kori. "I had to answer all of these pointless questions." She went on to describe the questionnaire in explicit detail, leaving out the part about the beer.

"You were in counseling?" Terra had looked up from her notebook at last (That intense concentration had to end sometime), and was now glaring at Kori with a wide-eyed look of interest. "For what?"

"She stole a wallet," answered Vick. Rob had told him the whole story, and both were clearly proud of their friend. Kori gave the boys both a death glare.

"Whose?" Raven, who had been paying an awful lot of attention to her salad, and was now looking up at her friends.

"Anna Kole's," muttered Kori, feeling the blush rush back into her cheeks. "It was a total accident, I swear-"

"It'd better have been an accident," said Terra, her eyes growing wide. "That poor girl's been wailing about it non-stop since it went missing last Friday. She won't talk about anything else, and she keeps breaking down and crying in band, hasn't she Rae?"

Raven seemed to have lost interest at this point, and didn't answer Terra's question. Instead, she went back to eating her salad.

Kori felt a sinking feeling in her stomach, and suddenly wasn't hungry anymore.

When Kori returned to counseling the next day, she found that she, Dacia, and Esther were the only students in the room. It smelled like chlorine again.

"Back, I see?" said Dacia. Esther didn't say anything.

"Where's Ms. Bell?" asked Kori, putting her stuff down next to Dacia.

"Not here," was the response. Dacia was wearing the same tie today, with several pins from obscure bands Kori only pretended she had ever heard of. Esther, on the other hand, had her uniform sleeves rolled down and her hair in thin braided pigtails. Around her neck was a pink heart necklace most likely from Aeropostale.

"Hi," she said in a small voice that reminded Kori of a cassette player when you press a lot of buttons at the same time (Kori's little brother had messed up most of Kori's favorite tapes by doing this, including her audio reading of The Boxcar Children that she often fell asleep to, literature nerd she was).

"Is your last name Anders?" Dacia asked Kori. Kori nodded. "You related to Jessica?" Another nod.

"Yeah, she used to be one of my friends a while back in middle school," continued Dacia. "We were the bad girls in our grade, until I caught her with my boyfriend in ninth grade. We haven't spoken since except to cuss each other out occasionally." Kori couldn't help but smile.

"I don't get along too well with her either," she said softly. "I'm pretty much on the same terms with her as you are."

"So you don't have to, like, share a bathroom, or any of that crap?" asked Dacia.

"Thank goodness, no," replied Kori. "We have a big house, so I hardly have to see her except at dinner."

The two spent about the next ten minutes just talking about Jessica, before they were interrupted by the opening of the door to the classroom, and in walked Vice Principle Mamfunk and, oddly enough, Jessica Anders. The Manfunk looked enraged, and Jessica looked bored.

"Where's Charlotte?" he asked, referring to Ms. Bell.

"Well, obviously not here," answered Dacia. "Do you see Charlotte?" she turned and asked Esther. The latter quickly shook her head. "I certainly don't see Charlotte. Sorry, sir. No Charlotte." Dacia looked pleased. The Manfunk looked furious. He shoved Jessica into the room before storming off, probably to find Charlotte. The door slammed shut loudly, making Kori jump.

"Hello, Jessica," said Dacia, narrowing her eyes. Jessica ignored her, though. Her gaze was directed a little to the right.

"Well, hello, little sister," she said, not bothering to hide the displeasure in her voice.. "What in the world are _you_ doing in _here_?" She took a seat beside Esther, who shied away. Jessica smelled like cigarettes. It was obvious why _she_ was in here.

"She stole a wallet," answered Dacia.

If Jessica was at all impressed by her little sister's crime (Rarely had she done something so interesting), she certainly didn't show it. She just massaged her shoulders and leaned back in the seat. Esther coughed a little and fingered her inhaler. She was looking a little nervous, obviously afraid of having an asthma attack with Jessica so close to her.

The rest of the class period passed in silence. Ms. Bell never showed up, so they all sat and stared at each other. Occasionally, Dacia would flick Jessica off, and Jessica would call Dacia something obscene in return, but other than that, silence. Once, Esther pulled out a tube of lip gloss, and Kori would now and then make a little noise crossing and uncrossing her legs. Dacia sneezed. Jessica tapped her heavily ringed fingers on the desk. Then, the bell rang.

"What's the distributive property, again?"

It was Tuesday, Kori's fourth day of counseling. Jessica had vanished, Dacia was "gone to her locker" (an excuse meaning anything from "doing drugs" to "beating up little kids" to who knows what else), and Kori was helping Esther with her Algebra I homework (Esther was behind a year in math and science for a freshman due to a problem with simple addition and subtraction).

Ester looked up at Kori with sad, green eyes, obviously nervous about asking Kori to reteach this simple process again, for the third or fourth time (They'd lost count).

It was about three minutes until the bell when Kori got a feeling. Something stirred in her brain, and made her jump a little.

"Ms. Bell, can I be excused?" Ms. Bell nodded, and Kori left, first patting Esther on the back encouragingly.

Kori had no idea where she was going. She felt vaguely like an idiot as she stood there in the hallway, feeling panicked and rushed. In a minute and a half, the bell would ring, and Kori would have to go back to Ms. Bell's room and get her stuff.

Her feet carried her to the front entrance of the building. They then carried her outside and in the direction of the dorms. Something was definitely wrong. The air didn't smell right.

People passing stared as Kori made her way quickly to the girls' dorms. One of the second floor windows was open. The air on this side of the campus smelled like smoke.

Kori nearly ran into the building and upstairs. She rounded the corner and took the stairs two at a time.

The door to room 201, her dorm room, was open, and smoke was barreling from inside it. Kori made her way into the space, coughing from the fumes, and spotted a small amount of flames coming off of the desk closest to her own bed.

Thinking quickly, Kori threw open the window over her bed. Smoke poured out of it. Avoiding the flame, the redhead leaned out of the window to breathe some fresh air. She was about to rush to the bathroom to get a damp towel to throw on the fire, when she spotted a black haired girl walking casually away from the building. Jessica.

Kori ran out of the building as quickly as she'd come in. More people stared now. With pleasure, Kori heard the fire alarm sound. She couldn't help but smile.

It only took a couple of seconds to catch up with Jessica. Time was moving too quickly for Kori to process what she was thinking or doing. Before she knew it, she was throwing herself at her sister. Weird, yes, but that was the only thing she could think to do.

A lighter fell from Jessica's hand, confirming Kori's thoughts.

"You set my room on fire!" Kori hissed, half as a question, though she already knew the answer.

"Cool prank, huh?" replied Jessica. She grabbed Kori's arm and twisted it until tears came into her sister's eyes. Then, she kicked Kori so hard in the shin that, for a second, Kori really thought her leg must be broken. Jessica's Doc Martens _hurt_. Why couldn't Jessica have been like Esther who wore Reeboks?

Kori's hand went, on instinct, to her leg. She breathed in hard through her nose and, for the first time, realized that Jessica was drunk. She sure smelled like it.

The Manfunk couldn't have shown up when Jessica was beating Kori to a pulp. No, he had to show up the second that Kori decided to fight back. She was in the process of punching Jessica in the face when he interrupted them.

"Anders, stop this instant," he shouted, gripping Kori's arm. Kori quickly withdrew as Jessica fingered her chin. Jessica proceeded to flick Kori off.

"Now what the heck is your problem?" The Manfunk narrowed his eyes.

"She set my room on fire!" cried Kori. She could feel her eyes filling up with tears. This wasn't going as planned.

"Yeah," said Jessica, looking disoriented. Kori made a pact never to get drunk as long as she lived, unless she had good reason.

It didn't take long for the story of Kori's brave and defiant act to get around the student population. People were talking about how she'd beat her drunken sister to a pulp and single-handedly put out the flame in her dorm room.

Well, close enough.

Unfortunately, Kori didn't get to enjoy this, since she was in the principle's office with her sister the whole time.

"Mrs. Anders," The Manfunk was saying into the telephone. "I'm here with your daughters. Jessica has performed an act punishable by expulsion, and I'm afraid I'll have to do so." He went on to explain Jessica's drunkenness, wile Kori sat nervous, and Jessica sat bored, flicking off anyone who looked at her.

"Your mother will be here in a few hours to collect you, Jessica," said The Manfunk. Jessica used a few choice words, and the assistant principle turned to the redheaded Anders sister.

"Kori," he said. "I know you had good intentions, but I'm afraid that skipping class and fighting on campus are going to land you in two more weeks of guidance counseling." Kori felt her heart fall at this news, but only a little. She would get another two weeks with Dacia and Esther, and her sister was going home for good. On top of this, she would be applauded for when she left the principle's office. Could it get better?

Maybe breaking out of a shell wasn't too hard, Kori decided as she left the office half an hour later. She glanced at the fire engine leaving the school and knew she would have some explaining to do to Raven and Terra.

Humming Breakaway under her breath and thinking about the bruise on her leg and dying her hair black to match it, Kori headed to lunch, feeling rather like an onion that had lost its troublesome top layer.

* * *

**Ok, there it is. Hope you enjoyed it. **

**I'll be working on the next chapter ("When the Bee Stings") now for a while. I didn't really like this chapter, so I'll try ot make chapter six really good for ya'll's sake and mine. I'll attempt to get the next chapter out pretty soon, so keep on waiting. **

**-Giz**


	6. The Things We Do for the Football Team

**Okay, sorry about the wait. I really apologize. I've had so much going on with school, track, band, my "daughter"'s upcoming bat mitzvah, one of my BFFs (Betsy's) older sister being hospitalized on suicide watch, and when all this was over, my grandfather passed away. So I've beenin a rough spot. **

**Beware: this chapter is my longest ever (14 pages on Microsoft Word). Also, the end was sort of rushed since I had limited time to write, but won't have much time in teh next week, as I'm about to put on my fourth musical, and have nine hours of dress rehersals in the next two days, and then after that is my birthday. So chapter seven may be a while in the making. **

**-Giz**

* * *

Chpt. 6: The Things We Do for the Football Team 

"_Where there is great love, there are always wishes." _-Willa Cather

* * *

Each school year, at the beginning of October, comes an event marked by school spirit, peer togetherness, and hoards of multicolored streamers and Silly String. To some it is a great celebration, and to others a great annoyance, but all agree on the importance of the high school landmark drawing the week to the close. 

"So Rob, when are you asking Kori to the Homecoming Dance?" Vick looked up with eager eyes as he cleaned his plate of scrambled eggs with his fork. The question took Rob by surprise, and he promptly swallowed part of his ham biscuit the wrong way. He began coughing and sputtering immediately, and it took approximately two and a half minutes for him to regain full control.

"I already did," was the result of all that coughing. Rob doused his swallowed ham biscuit in 2 milk.

"Did we miss something?" Vick and Rob looked up from the table to see Raven, Terra, and Gar sitting down in their usual places. Raven's eyebrows were raised as she looked over at Rob's red face as he nodded in response to her question.

"Where's Kori?" asked Gar.

"Bathroom," answered Vick. "She stepped in a mud puddle on the way to breakfast." The weather had taken a turn for the worse over the weekend, and Monday had brought muddy grounds and dripping trees for all. Kori had been walking with Rob and, in an alleged moment of absent-mindedness, plunged her New Balances into yet another mud-hole.

"It's Homecoming Week, isn't it?" said Terra. Her eyes were half-closed, and she looked and sounded groggy, as thought she'd only woken up a moment before from some deep sleep. Vick nodded excitedly.

"And I bet I know who you want to go wi- OW!" Vick winced and his hand flew to his face as the remainder of the projectile ham biscuit slid to the ground.

"That was my breakfast!" protested Rob as Terra, successful, took her seat. Not only had she caused pain to Vick, but she had also broken two lunch table rules ("No throwing things" and "If you must throw, it must be from your own tray.").

"Bad Terra," scolded Gar as Terra proceeded to steal remaining ham from Rob's plate.

"What did she do?" The five looked up as Kori sat down. Her wet tennis shoes squeaked on the tile floors. Rob forgot about the ham.

"She threw ham at Vick," said Raven in a matter-of-fact voice, taking a bite of her frosted Wheeties. They crunched smartly. For some reason the mention of the Homecoming Dance had made her face turn a shade of pink resembling that of Kori's hair.

"So Vick, what were you saying about Terra?" Rob said this in a careful voice, but a smile spread on his face. Kori looked confused, and Terra looked ready to pounce.

"I think I know who our little blonde friend wants to go to the Homecoming Dance with…" Vick said slowly and overly loud. Terra's hand caressed the fork on the table on front of her as she contemplated throwing it at Vick.

"Don't you dare," she hissed almost inaudibly.

"R…" Vick began. "Roy…" Terra's hand closed around the cutlery.

"Roy Suttle!" Vick shouted, and the fork came flying towards him, barely missing his forehead and landing with a clatter somewhere behind him.

"You mean that red headed sophomore on the soccer team?" asked Gar.

"Orange, not red," Terra quickly corrected.

"He's in my pottery class!" replied Rob. "He can make a _mean_ miniature flower vase."

"What's he in that class for?" asked Gar.

"He broke into the teachers' lounge multiple times last year to steal coffee and the like," answered Rob.

"That was _him_?" Kori wanted to know. "I thought that was _you_." Rob looked offended.

"Why I-" he began to say, but was interrupted by Vick.

"Shut up!" he nearly shouted, startling everyone except for Raven, who was never startled by anything. "We're focusing on the wrong thing here!"

"Heck yes, we are," muttered Terra, taking a bite of her cereal bar (as good as the real thing) and trying to ignore everyone.

"What we need to be doing," said Vick. "Is trying to get our blonde companion's wishful desire to come true!"

"No!" shouted Terra, throwing her cereal bar at Vick. It missed and hit Kori, who wiped the crumbs off her shirt and continued looking beautiful. Terra envied her for a moment. If someone threw something at her, she would somehow end up halfway across the lunchroom, upside down, with her bra strap wrapped around, say, Roy Suttle's chair leg.

Terra looked up at her table-mates just as the bell rang. Vick flashed her an evil look, and Terra stuck her tongue out at him. This was war.

It wasn't until later, after a shower and a talking to, that Terra realized that she did want Roy to go to the dance with her and it didn't really matter how she got that. Oh well. Anger came first, in this case.

* * *

Vick planned to make his first move in Chemistry, his first period class, which he also happened to share with Roy. It was quiz day, so after handing in his paper (On which he had most likely scored a low to mid C), when Roy asked to go to the bathroom, Vick raised his hand as well and was graciously excused. 

The first floor hallway was usually empty, since all that was on it was the science department, the offices, and a set of bathrooms. The main covered walkway leading to the cafeteria was also off of the hallway, but that was only populated at mealtime. Now, however, as Roy sauntered into the restroom in front of Vick, footsteps could be heard behind him. Vick stopped at the water fountain to get a sip of water and let the footsteps pass. He never heard when they stopped behind him, which is exactly why, when he stood back up, he ran right in to the owner of the aforementioned footsteps.

"Watch it, Sparky," barked the girl. Vick immediately recognized her voice and her strikingly blue eyeliner that perfectly matched her eyes of a similar color. Today, however, Bee wasn't dressed in athletic clothes. Instead, she wore her school uniform with a pair of black flip flops and some gold bangles. It looked good, as Vick noted to himself on the spot, not leaving time to consider what this notion was telling him. It looked… beautiful. She looked beautiful.

"Hey, Bee," he said conversationally. "Did you uhhh… make the cheerleading team?" This was a stupid question. He knew she had, as he had gone and looked secretly the day of the posting. He hadn't known until now that it was Bee's name he had been searching for.

"Yeah," she answered, confused. "I made it. You congratulated me, remember? Last Friday, when I was wearing my uniform?"

Vick felt himself perform a cartoon-like sweat-drop as he nodded slowly. Bee was eying him, a rather dumbfounded look in her eyes. No, maybe that was annoyance. Was it possible that Vick couldn't tell the difference? Maybe this was a sign that he wasn't ready to ask her out yet. However, this thought didn't stop him from blurting out the next thing he said as Bee looked around and opened her mouth to dismiss herself from Vick's presence.

"Bee?" he felt himself saying dumbly. His voice was hoarse. Was that even him talking? "Will you, are you, uhhh…" He had no experience with this kind of stuff. How the heck did he begin?

"Will you go to the Homecoming Dance with me?" Vick said it all in one breath, possibly even without pauses between words. He was sweating now, like crazy. Was it the heater? His head was pounding. In fact, it was pounding so hard that he completely missed Bee's answer.

"You okay?" she was asking Vick now. Vick nodded. The girl's sympathetic look told him all he needed to know. She had declined. He knew it. He knew it all along. He felt like a bumbling idiot.

"Yeah. I'm fine," Vick repeated verbally. "I'm just a little, you know, shocked, I guess. I was hopeful…" Bee's eyes narrowed.

"You mean you _hoped_ I'd say _no_?" she asked. Her voice was loud, almost spiteful. "Are you shocked I said yes, or something? Did you want me to say no that bad?"

"Wait," answered Vick. "So you said yes?" His spirit lifted a bit.

"Of course I did, Sparky," Bee laughed. "Why wouldn't I?"

With that, she walked away, leaving Vick laughing manically in the hallway. He was still laughing when Roy left the restroom to head back to Chemistry, so quietly that Vick never noticed him and, thanks to this, missed his chance completely.

* * *

The only annoying aspect of Homecoming Week was the pointless "Get Fired Up" pep rallies held each and every stinking day of the week, all building up to the Homecoming night pep rally on Friday morning. These events brought together the whole school in the gym to listen to the marching band play and to cheer on and ultimately worship the football team by the name of the Gotham Prep Vikings. Occasionally they would get to hear speeches by football players of varsity cheerleaders, but besides that it was all screaming and cheering. 

"_This is Viking battle cry: V-I-C-T-O-R-Y!_" the cheerleaders shouted dumbly from their position on the basketball court. A few people in the audience cheered, mostly little sixth graders or pumped up seniors or class clowns looking to attract attention. Our three favorite sophomores fell under none of these categories.

"So did you talk to Suttle?" Rob wanted to know. He, Vick, and Kori were lounging on the rolled up wrestling mats in the area at the top of the basketball stands. Raven, Gar and Terra were down in the stands utilized by the marching band, since the drumline performed during pep rallies (The only enjoyable part of the time). They couldn't see the court from here, but there was no need to, as they could hear the band.

"Nah," said Vick. "I didn't think about it. Terra'll have to rough it. "

"Why do you look like you have a secret?" asked Kori, turning to face her African-American friend. He was, in fact, smiling rather evilly, as though he was hiding something.

"Not a secret," he said. "Just a date." Rob whistled, and Kori beamed.

"Who?" the two said in unison.

"Bee Cox," Vick answered over the shouts of "_This is sophomore battle cry_". A few of their classmates were even shouting along. Vick imagined Bee down on the court leading the cheer, in her little black and red cheer skirt…

"You mean that girl you saw in the parking lot and wouldn't stop talking about?" asked Rob.

"Ooh," interrupted Kori before Vick could say anything. "She's the one you were looking for on the list the day they posted cheerleading tryout results!"

Vick ignored this last bit and turned to Rob.

"Yeah," he answered. "It was hard, though. I didn't even hear her answer. I just assumed she said no, actually, until she noticed I looked weird and assured me that she had said yes."

"Harsh," chimed Kori, wincing, her eyes sparkling under the gym lights as she did so. Rob pretended he didn't notice. However, Kori was aware of him scooting a tiny bit closer to her. She only smiled. Boys could be so weird, sometimes.

* * *

"I guess I sort of do want him to ask me," Raven was saying. She and Kori were walking back from the pep rally, since their third period classes were on the same hallway. Raven twisted her violet hair around her finger, and a smile came to her mouth. 

"If all else fails," commented Kori. "You could just ask him, instead of the other way around."

"I guess," Raven said softly as the two rounded the staircase going up to the second floor. "But how do I know what to say?" This was a question that often came up when she and Kori talked about Gar.

"You'll know," said Kori. For the moment, Raven believed her. Actually, she often did until she was forced again into Gar's presence. Right now, Raven was lucky, as Gar was assisting Terra in carrying the various drumline impedimenta back to the drum closet without breaking anything, a feat unheard of with the two of them involved. On a good day, an average of three pieces of vital equipment were lost/broken/harmed beyond repair.

"Bye," said Kori suddenly, and Raven watched her swing around the doorway into her third period, Mrs. Garner's study hall, where Rob and Vick were already waiting patiently. Raven was just turning to walk across the hallway to World History when a voice caused her to nearly jump out of her skin.

"Hey, Rae," said Gar so suddenly that Raven's heart began moving faster than the drumsticks of her snare drum. "What's up?"

It took Raven approximately 67 seconds to regain her full breath before she could speak, and when she did, the result of all her struggling was a hoarse, "Nothing. You?" She felt like a scrawny fifth grader of something. It was the lamest excuse for an answer.

Gar nodded and smiled, reaching out to take Raven's backpack from her. She accepted (For maybe more than one reason.) and they entered World History. The two took their seats usual calmly at the back of the large room, near the oversized map of Spanish Exploration in the 16th Century, or something like that. Raven had never noticed, since she'd always been to preoccupied with a certain brunette male who frequented the desk in front of her. In fact, her desk provided one of many scenic views of the back of Gar's christened adorable head, offering a direct panorama of his sandy brown hair complete with natural blonde-ish highlights, the slight peach-fuzz on the nape of his neck, the way that his ears stuck out a little more at the top than at the bottom…

Raven was snapped back into the harsh reality of World History when she heard Mr. Lewis beginning to dictate the day's notes off of the overhead projector. She quickly pulled out her notebook and neat black pen, trying to make as little of a scene as possible (This was rather easy, since Terra had just wandered late into the room and promptly tripped over the trash can placed to catch water from the leaky ceiling, causing the said water to cascade onto the shoes of one of Maya's henchies). It was at this choice moment when Raven noticed a piece of paper lying on her desk, folded in a far-from neat manner. "From: Gar", is said on the outside in the tiny handwriting belonging to none other than the owner of the written name. Raven felt her heart skip a beat. Could this be _the moment_?

Mr. Lewis was recapping their notes from Friday, something about the city of Constantinople and its three protective walls. Raven glanced back and forth from the teacher to the note. She winced as Terra, in an attempt to take her seat with no further interruptions, fell off of her quarter-inch-heeled flip flops and banged her ankle hard on the bar of her desk. In the commotion that followed, Raven took the note into her lap and unfolded it as quickly as possible. Her eyes scanned the print.

_Rae,_ it read. _Do you know where the extra bass drum mallets are? Jordan bit one of them in rage over that whole incident with the staple gun and now Terra's afraid to touch it, since you know she has that theory that Jordan has rabies. -Gar

* * *

_

"Are you sure that they were in here?" Raven lifted a snare drum and looked underneath it. Not finding the missing mallets, she moaned. As much as she tried to pretend she was in her air conditioned dorm room, she couldn't help but face the fact that the drum closet was _hot_. It was like a sauna. Raven's hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, but was still nearly soaked through with sticky sweat.

"Yeah, we've looked everywhere else," Gar said. He sounded unsure, however, that his Mallet Location Calculations were correct this time. He too was drenched in sweat from searching the closet for as long as he and Raven had been.

It was about 12:07 on Monday. The marching band had had an extra practice during lunch hour for their big halftime show on Friday night, but that had gone slowly since Terra and Jordan had to share the bass drum mallets.

"Why did Jordan have to get so dang mad about the whole staple gun thing?" Gar asked wearily. Raven ignored him and looked under a different pile of junk. The spare mallets hadn't been spotted since the beginning of the year, but something apparently had let Gar to believe they were somewhere in this forsaken closet.

"I'm getting some fresh air," Raven started to say as she turned to face the entranceway. It was then that her and Gar's ears turned, and their hearts stopped beating at the sound that came next. Time ceased to tick. The world ceased to turn. Horror consumed all.

Well, maybe not that last one.

_Slam-click_. That was the sound. It echoed for a moment, and the closet went pitch-black. Voices were heard outside of the door, a slight shuffle as of people moving quickly. There was a crash as someone hit something heading out of the band room door, followed by someone saying, "Ahava, stop giggling!". Then, nothing.

"So…" Raven turned to face Gar, but couldn't see anything but an outline of his body. The only light in here was from a glow-in-the-dark Star Wars Pez dispenser someone had lost and never bothered to find.

"This is awkward," muttered Gar, turning to face the door. He took the words right out of his dark-haired companion's mouth.

"Totally," said the aforementioned dark-haired companion, twisting the aforementioned hair nervously around her fingers. She could make out Gar's ears and hair, sticking in every direction, and for a moment, she was sure he was smiling.

"It could be worse," he said slyly, causing Raven's eyebrows to go up like an elevator. She felt her heart racing, and almost said _"Stuck with you? What's worse than that?"_, but it dawned on her that that would be a blatant lie.

"I mean," Gar continued. "You could be stuck in close proximity with, like, Maya or someone."

"She'd kill me first," said Raven with a chuckle, rolling her eyes in the pitch blackness.

"Do you _really _think Maya would kill you?" Gar asked in a much more serious voice. Raven could almost see him wrinkling his brow in concentration.

"Uh, yeah," she responded without thought. "I do. I mean, she hates me. What more incentive does she need?"

"Well, you hate her to don't you?" Gar countered. "And it's not like you're about to pull a gun on her, right? Hopefully?" Raven had to laugh.

"No, I'm not about to shoot her," she assured Gar. "Unfortunately. But I'm used to being hated by people like her. Maya, on the other hand, is one of those, 'But everybody loves meeeeeeee!' people. Get what I'm saying?"

"I guess…" Gar answered softly. In part, he really did just somewhat agree with Raven. On the other hand, he just didn't like thinking about Raven being brutally murdered by Maya. It sort of depressed him.

* * *

"Okay, French is officially not my language," announced Vick, looking down at the test paper in front of him. "68, _Quel Dommage!_", it read in large, loopy red writing. 

Kori looked eagerly up at Mme. Grissom, waiting to get her test back.

"Mme. Grissom, you didn't grade the back page of mine," wailed a student behind Kori.

"You didn't grade _mine_ at _all_," pointed out another. Gloria Grissom shook her head.

"_Mon Dieu_," she replied. "The only reason I didn't commit suicide right then and there was that I had just graded Kori's test." She laid a paper bearing a large "99" on in front of the redhead.

"Dang it," muttered Kori as the teacher walked away. "I forgot the accent mark above the 'e's in _réfrigérateur." _

Vick scanned his test. "What does _avoir tort_ mean, Kori?"

"'To be wrong', why? What did you put?"

Vick took a small breath. "Uhhh… I put 'to have pie'." He watched as Mme. Grissom awarded her prime A-makers with age-old Tootsie rolls. Kori slipped her's onto Vick's desk, and he promptly popped it in his mouth.

Vick eyed Bee, who sat (by assigned seat) on the other side of the room, in the front of the classroom.

"I never should have asked her out," he found himself muttering. Kori raised her eyebrow quizzically.

"Why not?" She twirled her hair around her fingers and looked at Bee. The girls had never really had much to do with each other, but Kori always respected Bee. Anyone with that fashion sense should be respected, Kori had decided.

"I… I just don't have that much experience," said Vick. "I mean, I know I'm 16, but I've never had a real girlfriend. And Bee's a scary girl, If you see what I mean."

Kori looked at him with narrow eyes. "Vick, you're acting weak," she said in a warning voice. "Don't be weak." The redhead slapped Vick on the shoulder.

"I just hope I can make it through the week with that girl," Vick responded, putting his head down on his desk.

* * *

The good news was, they found the mallets. Gar had found them when he attempted to sit down on an old, broken piano bench (one of many) and had found that there was something lying across the bench cushion. He actually almost broke the one he sat on. The other fell safely to the floor, and it took an additional three and a half minutes to locate beneath all the junk where it had rolled. This took some crawling on the floor and an intense period of search and rescue by light of Gar's cell phone, which kept playing _O, Canada_ for some reason. 

"Maybe we should, you know, check the door," suggested Raven, wiping sweat from her forehead. Gar made a small humming noise and turned the knob again. It turned, the door opened, and light from the band room leaked into the closet.

"Oh," said Gar softly. Raven didn't speak, though Gar was sure he saw a vein pulsing in her head.

"Let's go to lunch," she said sharply. Gar grabbed his hunter green bookbag from the floor, not daring to argue.

* * *

Raven bit her lower lip as she tossed her empty iced tea cup into the cafeteria trash can. It was Tuesday night at dinner, more than twenty four hours after the Closet Incident™ (as it had come to be called between the marching band and numerous others), and the girl had yet to attempt to talk to Gar about the Homecoming Dance. She had always been a bit of a procrastinator. It was plain and simple: Raven always waited until the last minute to do things, even things as important as confessing to the love of your life. However, she had always preferred to call it "rationalizing character flaws". 

"Gosh, how can they call that lettuce? It's, like, yellow!" Raven turned around to see Gar standing behind her, salad in hand. Thanks to his choice vegetarianism, there was seldom a good choice of food for the poor boy. And the lettuce today was indeed yellow.

In the moment that followed, Raven panicked a small bit. Gar tossed his salad into the plastic trash can (Raven's panic turned to anger for a brief nano-second as the ranch dressing from the aforementioned salad splashed up onto her shirt).

"Something eating you, Rae?" Gar asked, his usual grin on his face.

"Uhhh…" Raven began. She almost said _Yes, I want to go to the dance with you, you idiot!_, but restrained herself.

"No, I just am… tired, yeah," she said instead. It wasn't even proper grammar. Not even a sentence.

"Okay, I guess I'll see you in the morning at drumline," Gar added as a goodbye before heading off to who-knows-where.

"Idiot," Raven muttered as she threw her salad bowl into the trash, not even sure who she had been talking to. She waited until she was safely in her dorm room to punch anything, and even then the bed had to suffice.

* * *

"Can you say, Homecoming Dance tomorrow?" Vick sat down at the lunch table, obviously excited by the prospects of the dance actually being little more than twenty four hours in the future. It was Thursday, around 12:00, and, due to some spasm by the lunch room staff, Brunch Day. Well, maybe it was intentional. Perhaps the seemingly innocent lunch staff were really plotting to destroy the world when the students all thought they were just defrosting last week's chicken sandwich patties for this week's "Chicken Cordon Blue". 

Terra was being extremely silent for her usual self. Sometimes she had calm periods, but that was no excuse. She hadn't even touched her "French Toast Stix", which she so devotedly loved.

"Hey Terra," called Gar from across the table. "Pass the napkins, please." The boy had succeeded in spilling his Silk Soymilk on Rob's shirt. When the blonde failed to respond, Gar poked Raven, who poked Kori, who shoved Terra, who finally looked up.

"Hey, Terra," said Gar. "Stop hogging the napkins!" Kori took the black woven napkin basket and slid it across the table with perfect precision.

"What's wrong?" Kori asked softly, looking down at her friend.

"Roy has a girlfriend," Terra muttered. "I saw him with her at breakfast this morning."

"Who is she?" asked Kori as Terra took a sip of her Diet Dr. Pepper.

"Some girl named Melissa who has totally fake blonde hair," Terra nearly spat. As if on cue, Roy and Melissa walked by, hand in hand. Terra was right. Erin had sort of poofy, bleached blonde hair that probably didn't move with the wind. Her eyelashes looked faintly like plastic prongs, they were so heavily covered in mascara, and her eyelids were an awfully sparkly navy blue. It was repulsive.

"She's butt ugly," said Raven, joining in. "What's she got that you don't?"

"First of all," said Terra. "Her name is number 30 on the list of most popular girl's names. Mine is 999. That's, like, a 700 difference-"

"969, not 700," interrupted Raven. Terra ignored her.

"And guys love fake blonde hair and girls who wear too much makeup. It makes them look like hookers, and boys love hookers. And look at her boobs! Can she even see her feet?" Terra laid her head on her arms in disgust and watched as the couple sat down at the table to the left.

"You'll find someone special," said Kori.

"Yeah right," muttered Terra as the redhead went back to talking to Rob.

_32 hours and counting_, mused Raven, looking over at Gar.

* * *

_I'm so happy for you, I could cryyyyy, I am so elated, cross my heart and hope to die, I don't think about you every night before I close my eyes…_ Raven pulled off her headphones and looked up to see Terra dashing across the football field towards where her violet-haired friend sat. Despite her valuable spot on the track team, Raven knew for a fact that after an incident with a chain-link fence, Terra never dashed in sandals unless she had a good reason. 

Raven held down the Pause button on her iPod until the sounds of Saving Jane cut off.

"Guess what!" squealed Terra as Raven put the iPod into her bookbag. It was about 7:50 on Friday morning, and they had been called outside for another early drumline practice.

"I have a date!" Terra nearly yelled without waiting for Raven to guess. It was for the better; Raven hated guessing games.

"Who?" she asked bluntly, not bothering to hide her quickly raised eyebrows.

"Gar!" answered Terra. Raven felt a pang in her heart. Perhaps Terra had said "bar", or "car", referring to who-knows-what. Maybe she hadn't said "date" after all. Maybe she said… "gate". Maybe she meant she now owned a "gate" to a "bar" or a "car". Only cars have doors, not gates. Or maybe she had said "date", and she was going on a date _to_ either a "bar" or a "car". Only there wasn't much fun to do in a car. Well, nothing Raven could visualize her blonde best friend doing.

"Wh… what… who?" Raven felt like she was shrinking .

Suddenly, Terra's expression turned to regret.

"Oh, Rae, I forgot… I didn't realize…" Terra stuttered. "I didn't realize you still liked him…"

Raven wasn't sure if she believed Terra or not. She just sat there.

_I don't think about you every night, before I close my eyes. I'm so happy for you baby, I could… cry.

* * *

_

"Fresh White Musk, or Freesia?" Kori held up two bottles of something strongly scented to Raven. They smelled the same to Raven, as did all the crap Kori had sprayed on Raven/conditioned Raven's hair with/rubbed on Raven's collarbone. With all the freesia and wild rose and mint and jasmine and honeysuckle and gardenia scented beauty products, this was the closest Raven would ever get to gardening.

"Dunno," she said, looking back down at her notebook. Despite the fact that it was Homecoming Night, they still had weekend homework in World History.

It was 7:51 on Friday night, and the football game (scheduled early) was over. The Gotham Prep Vikings had won by two points to a the Pine Lake "Big Fish" (their school colors were sky blue and yellow).

"How are you coming, Terra?" called Kori after spraying the purple bottle all around Raven and herself. Terra stumbled out of the bathroom. She had her hair half-straightened (Kori had given her extensive lessons) and was wearing a pair of brown gauchos and a white bra.

"Uhhh... So-so," she replied. A bright blue baby doll top was draped over her arm, and she was already wearing some dangle blue and brown beads around her neck, borrowed from Kori.

Raven rolled over onto the bed. She had on a lavender, drapey top and a black, knee-length skirt. Her hair had been curled and pulled into an updo. By lying on Kori's comforter, she was most likely ruining her eye makeup, but she didn't care. It wasn't as though she had a date (or "gate") to show off to.

Terra emerged from the bathroom several moments later, after some destructive sounding crashes and a few cuss words, looking as beautiful as she ever had. Raven was jealous for once of her.

Kori pretty much beat the crap out of both of them in beauty, though. Tonight, she wore a long, gauzy, off-white bubble skirt and a sexy, army green tank top. Her hair was down and curled at the bottoms, and she seemed to shimmer in the dim dorm room lights. Even her wooden bangles looked like they were sparkling.

"Homecoming, here we come," she said for effect.

* * *

Raven scuffed her black slides against the pavement outside of the cafeteria. She could hear some rap song she didn't recognize, and the air smelled like the freesia spray she that had been forced upon her by Kori multiple times. It was almost 11:00, and the dance would be over soon , in 15 minutes. 

Rubbing her bare shoulders through the openings in her shirt, Raven looked down the hill in front of her at the lake and sighed. Why couldn't they all have their own keys to the dorm room. On the way down here, Kori had taken responsibility over it so that Raven would have to stay. Raven had to hate Kori for that.

"You okay out here?" It was Rob. Raven turned around to face him and nodded.

"Yeah," she replied. "You okay in there?" Ron had to smile.

"Who knew Kori could dance?" he answered. Raven hated him too now, for being so nice when she was grouchy.

"Mind telling me why you're out here to begin with?"

Raven nodded.

"Yes you'll tell me, or yes you mind?" Rob asked, his dark eyebrows raising.

"Yes I mind," droned Raven.

"Does it have something to do with Gar?" Rob wanted to know.

No answer.

"Don't worry, I won't tell him. I promise," said Rob with a wink before walking off. Raven felt as though she might cry. In fact, she actually felt one or two tears form and then go away. Was she so much of a _reject_?

Raven sauntered towards the door and let herself in. "Shout" was playing now, so everyone was jumping up and down spastically. She spotted her group over near she snack table. Terra waved in mid-jump.

"What were you doing out there, smoking or something?" joked Vick as Raven joined the group.

"She looks sort of drugged to me," laughed Terra.

Raven looked at Gar. He was wearing khakis and a white dress shirt, and a tie that had _Gumby_ on it. He wore it to every school function and a joke. Now, Gar just stared at the floor. He glanced at Raven once, but as soon as she looked up, he went back to his drink.

Terra and Vick started jumping again, but Gar turned and poured himself a cup of Coke. Kori looked rather dizzy from all the jumping. Rob turned to Raven and held up his hand. Two of his fingers were crossed.

"What?" mouthed Raven. Her voice came out as a whisper. What was Rob doing? Was it some sort of gang sign, or a bizarre signal? Were Raven's pants unzipped? No, she wasn't wearing pants. Wait, that didn't sound right. Why did she look at Gar when she thought that? Okay, she was wearing a _skirt_. A skirt.

"Rae?"

It took Raven a moment to realize that Gar was talking to her, even though he'd said her name.

"Can we talk? Outside?" he asked politely. Raven nodded and followed him to the door, which he graciously opened for her. What did he want? Suddenly, Rob's hand signal made all too much sense. Crossed fingers. The universal sign for "I was just kidding when I made that promise". Boy, did Raven hate Rob right now.

"I uhhh, talked to Rob," began Gar, and Raven gulped. She _so_ wasn't ready for this.

"Yeah?" she answered.

"He told me why you were out here instead of inside," Gar continued. He sniffed the air, and Raven was suddenly conscious of how floral she smelled.

"Uhuh," she said as one word, wanting nothing more than to crawl under a rock like Maya Parrish had always suggested. It was sure hot out here for October.

"And I really wish you'd told me," Gar said. Raven felt her heart stop. He couldn't mean it.

"I didn't tell you 'cause I didn't want you to know," responded Raven, trying to sound cool and self-possessed. It came out rather like the laugh of a baboon Raven had once watched at a zoo.

"What did you think I would say?" Gar laughed. Raven looked away. This wasn't right. He never laughed at her in her fantasies. Her fantasies were much more NC-17, in fact. And they weren't on the patio outside of the cafeteria.

"I… don't know," said Raven slowly.

Gar smiled. "Well do you want to know what I say?" he asked. Raven shrugged childishly.

"Well you know what I say?" asked Gar. "I say this."

Then, he kissed her.

After a guiltily pleasuring three and a half minutes, the two finally broke apart.

"I love you," choked Raven, tears in her eyes.

"I love you, too."

* * *

It was about 3:00 (3:01) AM, and Raven was still awake, lying in bed. She fingered her American Eagle tank top and sighed with happiness. 

She and Gar had spent the remaining ten or so minutes of the dance and the next twenty or so minutes making out, first on the patio, next down by the lake. It was bliss. Apparently, Terra was okay with it (would Raven _care_ if she _wasn't_ okay with it?).

Now, hours later, Raven was in her own little heaven. 24 hours ago, she had been miserable. Now, she had a boyfriend. Could things get better?

_I wish you were here_, Raven thought, imagining Gar could hear here. She imagined him in her bed, and fell asleep on that thought. It's funny how heaven can have such different meanings for different people.

* * *

**Please review**

**-Giz**


	7. Trials and Tribulations

**Okay, I know it was a long time in tha making, but it's my longest chapter yet (exactly 20 pages), so it was worth it to take that long writing it. Enjoy, -Giz**

* * *

Chpt. 7: Trial and Tribulations 

"_You'd like to think you were invincible. Yeah. Well weren't we all once before we felt loss for the first time." _-Dashboard Confessional

* * *

Gar swished around his ice water, listening to the sound the cubes made on the Styrofoam cup. Something sounded different about the lunch table. It wasn't noise, but lack of it that startled him. 

"Where's Terra?" he asked. The remaining four others looked up from their lunches.

"She went home for the weekend," explained Kori, after chewing up a surprisingly solid bite of Yukon Gold Whipped Potatoes (in honor or the school's Western Exploration Day).

"Poor thing has to get braces," added Rob. He had forgone the potatoes, but was nibbling at something called Covered Wagon Gold Nuggets (chicken) with Continental Divide Fried Okra (okra).

"Ouch…" said Gar, remembering when he'd had braces, grades five through seven, thank goodness only for two years. "How long does she have to have them on?"

"She didn't say." That was Raven that time.

"Hmm," hummed Gar.

It was Saturday, so the school population was out of dress code and out of class, and was exceedingly hot for October, even in California. Kori had broken out her cutoffs again for the occasion, and even Raven had forgone the long pants and donned a pair of athletic capris and a T-shirt. Gar was somewhat disappointed that his newfound girlfriend had been too in denial of her beauty to wear shorts, but she had made a promise that as soon as the heat got unbearable, he might just catch sight if her in something outrageously skimpy, possibly involving garter belts and see-through lace.

If only she weren't being sarcastic.

They had been going out for a week and a day now. The sudden announcement of the couple status had been shocking at first to their posse, especially to Vick, who was the only one who had no idea what was going on between the two adolescents, but the shock had now faded. Rob had even made a few jokes that alluded to making out, which didn't bother anyone but Kori, who was slower to get them, despite having been Rob's official girlfriend for, say, two months or so. She had definitely seen the wild side of things, or at least according to what Terra had accounted to having seen one day after a pep rally.

Gar was just about to get up to throw away his trash, when his cell phone rang. The student population was allowed to have their phones on when they weren't in class, so the boy's ringtone of _Hips Don't Lie_ (Vick's idea of a joke. The nerve, to steal a poor boy's cell phone in the middle of the night…) rang loud and triumphant.

"Hello?" Gar said into the phone.

"Hey, kiddo! Long time, no see!" It was Matt, Gar's cousin. Technically, they hadn't seen each other since Matt had dropped Gar and his sister off at the beginning of the year, but they had talked a few times since then.

"Hey, Matt," answered Gar, getting up from the table. Phone in hand, he walked across the lunchroom to throw away his plate. "What's up?"

"Well, I was planning to drive down to see Hannah, so I decided I'd drop in and visit you and Tem since it's the weekend and all," said Matt.

"Awesome!" replied Gar. Matt, his legal guardian, was by far one of his favorite people in the world. He had just about every electronic gadget known to man, and he drove a blue PT Cruiser. _That's just plain cool_, Gar had said when he's seen it for the first time. Hannah Diutullio was another one of Gar's favorite people. She was Matt's girlfriend of three and a half years, and she was tall and muscular from seventeen years of soccer, and she made utterly phenomenal vegetarian lasagna. It was amazing. It was a wonder of the man-made world. Gar couldn't live without it. Even Temperance, who hated alfredo sauce, loved it as much as anything.

"When are you gonna get here?" asked Gar as soon as he was finished daydreaming about pasta.

"This evening," answered Matt. "I'm leaving in about half an hour. Tell your sister I'm coming, 'kay?"

"Will do," said Gar before they said goodbye and hung up. He had a new feeling of joy now that he knew he would see Matt in the next twelve hours. He couldn't wait to introduce him to Raven!

_This is Raven,_ he would say.

_My God, she's gorgeous,_ Matt would reply honestly once Raven was out of earshot.

_I know,_ Gar would say loud enough for Raven to hear and wonder what he was saying about her in that voice. This would lead to some making out later that night, possibly down by the lake, on a bench away from everybody else. Gosh, the excitement was building already.

It was actually a few hours until Gar could single Temperance out to tell her of their cousin's surprise visit. To be honest, he didn't try to find her until about 3:00, and when he did spot her, she was with her entourage of punk-ish, Etnie-wearing, eighth grader outcasts, so he opted to wait until they were on their way to dinner to talk to her. 

"When?" was all Temperance said. Gar was slightly annoyed, but proceeded to tell her the projected time of arrival.

* * *

Matt didn't show up. He wasn't late; he just never showed up. 

Reluctant to give up on waiting, Gar had sat awake in the guys' recreation room until midnight, watching some pointless football game. Only on the TVs in all the dorm building, there was some bizarre anti-profanity chip built into them. The chip would recognize all sorts of obscenities, ranging from actual swear words (replaced with "darn" and "shoot" when necessary) to words like butt (replaced with "hiney", or even "rear"). The word in question here was "ball", replaced with "roll". Rob had been the one to discover this, when watching the Food Network. The sausage balls had been replaced with sausage "rolls", dictated in a mechanical, lifeless voice. Now, rather than football, Gar was watching "footroll".

Anyways, when Gar finally trudged up to his dorm room and fell asleep in his bed amidst the heavy breathing of Vick and Rob, it was only to have restless dreams of Matt being kidnapped at a 7-11 by the side of the highway while taking a short stop to buy a Mountain Dew, or Matt getting snowed into his Steel City residence by freak weather.

The next morning, Gar woke with a horrible sense of foreboding, of no light at the end of the tunnel. It reminded him if sixth grade midterms, only minus his math teacher's Whoppin' Stick™ , which he actually threw out the second story window the next semester.

Maybe it was the tragic lack of blonde at the table, but breakfast seemed a lot less fun, and a lot more healthy without Terra's dinosaur fruit snacks and overly processed snack cakes and Dr. Pepper for breakfast. However, Raven had talked to her just that morning on her cell phone. Apparently, Terra was in excruciating pain, and was having to be fed through a straw. She had gotten the sudden urge for fruit snacks in the middle of the night, and had ended up spending the rest of the night on the couch with a chunk of garish green stegosaurus hanging partially out of her mouth. That had definitely taught her a lesson. On the other, less painful end of braces, Terra had gone with a hearty orange shade of bands, so that when people grimaced at photographs of her, she could think they were looking at her orange-tinted teeth rather than her lack of cleavage and her stringy hair and stick-like arms.

"What is it with girls thinking they aren't pretty?" asked Rob. "Terra's plenty gorgeous. None of that stuff is true."

_Squirt_, went something pink and glittery in Kori's hand. A joking frown materialized on her round face.

"That's gross," said Rob, laughing, as he wiped the Shinyliscious brand lip gloss off of his cheek.

"Remember that time in seventh grade when we put Kori's mascara on Gar?" asked Vick, and the friends burst into peals of laughter at recounting the incident, which required several napkins and quite a lot of makeup removers. The incident, not the recounting.

Gar had almost recovered from that morning's sense of foreboding when the intercom clicked on and, in a static voice, the office secretary said, "Temperance and Gar Logan, please report to the office immediately."

The laughter at the breakfast table vanished as Gar stood up. Across the room, Gar saw his sister rise from her spot amongst her friends. The two met at the cafeteria door. Temperance looked about as apprehensive as Gar felt. Her black tank top, darkly lined eyes, and mangy, army green pants looked tragic and overpowering on her tiny, almost emaciated figure.

"D'ya think it's about Matt?" she asked, her voice quivering. Though she dressed herself in black and hung out with the punk kids, Temperance had never in her life been sent to the office, so she knew it must be important. "Is he here finally? I thought you said he was coming yesterday…"

"I don't know, Tem," said Gar, silencing the girl. "I don't know."

The two arrived at the office, which was in the Administration Office, in about a minute and a half. They didn't talk on the way there, not until they reached the front desk, asked why they were there, and were sent directly back into the principal's office.

Principal Childs was a skinny, bespectacled, middle-aged man with young children and lot of colorful ties that made younger children like him and older children detest him. The Logan children were utterly neutral.

"Have a seat," he said, gesturing the two towards a pair of uncomfortable-looking chairs with tacky seat coverings. Gar and Temperance followed his words, but didn't get comfortable. Gar stared at his feet, and Temperance fiddled with her skull and crossbones necklace (She'd gotten it from a theme park, but she still loved it). Gar hated that necklace. Although it was his sister's favorite piece of punk apparel, it made him think of the piratey souvenir shop where it had been purchased.

"Your cousin was driving up here to visit yesterday, am I correct?" Mr. Childs asked, twiddling his thumbs annoyingly. Gar twitched.

"Yes sir," he answered. Mr. Childs nodded. The office clock ticked impatiently.

"There was… an accident," continued Mr. Childs, and each word felt like a bullet. Temperance let in a sharp intake of breath, and Gar nearly bit his tongue off. This was expected, though, wasn't it? That was what Gar had imagined, deep down, that there was some accident. A bad thing. Gar rubbed his arms. Why was it so dang cold in here?

"Matt's car was hit by a speeding teenager coming across a bridge, late last night," the principal continued. "He was killed when the car was knocked through the railing and into the creek."

The bullets had turned to ice. Temperance was breathing in deep, wet gasps now. Gar felt his mouth fill up with blood. Matt was dead. _Matt _was dead. Matt was _dead._ Gone. Poof, right into thin air. Bye-bye. Au revoir. What ever that was in Spanish.

The boy's mind was racing now, going a mile a minute over all the last words, all the childhood memories, random things like that time at a family reunion when a 13-year-old Matt had accidentally locked Gar in the basement with the seriously homicidal cat, or the two weeks that Matt and his parents had spent with the Logan family in the Amazon, and Matt got bitten by a spider while bathing and had to be rushed to the village hospital in nothing but a towel. Was it really true? Would Gar never see him again? It seemed cruel and uncanny. Matt was too alive!

Temperance was crying now, in big, unladylike sobs that seemed to shake her entire body. Her brother couldn't blame her. Instead of scorning her for her childish behavior, Gar put one arm around his sister. She didn't argue, and actually leaned her head into Gar's shoulder, getting her smeared mascara on his white T-shirt.

"According to the papers he signed when he was made your legal guardian, upon his death you two are to be sent to live with his girlfriend, a Ms. Hannah Diutullio."

Gar felt his collapsed heart soar at this sentence. Even Temperance, despite the whole crying thing, looked up, her eyes piggy and rimmed with grey smears. She would need a definite makeup check after this was over.

"Really?" the girl asked. Her voice was wavering still, as though she may burst into tears again.

"Yes," answered Mr. Childs. "You will be sent home tonight for a week to move into her house in Madison, and attend the funeral. Everything is taken care of. Don't worry."

_Don't worry_, mused Gar in his head, nearly making him smile. What was there to worry about, he asked himself sarcastically.

* * *

Gar was sitting on the floor, folding clothing items into his suitcase, with the dorm room stereo belting out Eminem when Rob and Vick returned from running. 

"Where are _you_ headed?" asked Vick between breaths. He sunk down onto his bed, beside where Gar was seated.

"Madison, CA," Gar answered. "I'm leaving once I'm done packing."

Rob sunk down beside Vick and hit the pause button on the CD player. "Mind telling us why?"

Gar bit his lip and stuffed a pair of boxers into is suitcase. The worried stares of Vick and Rob were starting to bore into his brain. "My cousin - my legal guardian - was killed last night in a car accident. Me and Tem have to move in with his girlfriend down in Madison."

_Here goes_, thought Gar. All over again, just like at the beginning of the school year, only that was his grandmother.

Instead of apologizing, Vick embraced the boy. Gar felt his heart sort of bulge, and the tears well up in his eyes again. Vick was like a big brother to him, like Matt. Well, since Gar had never had a real brother, he wasn't sure how it felt to have one, but Matt seemed to score pretty close to one.

"How long?" asked Vick.

"A week at the shortest," Gar replied, looking down at his clothes.

"We'll miss you, buddy," said Ron after some hesitation.

"Yeah," said Gar. The tears were starting to sort of bubble over the sides of his eyelids. "Ditto."

* * *

The first thing about Hannah's suburban residence was how incredibly messy it was. Perhaps Matt had merely been a neat-freak compared to his laid back girlfriend, but Gar still got a weird, claustrophobic feeling whenever he walked by a rug with the edges folded up, a pretty table with a few dozen truckloads of magazines cluttering it's top, or a closet that was less of a place of storage and more of an avalanche just waiting to happen. Temperance seemed to feel the same way; Her brother had caught her grimacing at an empty Coke bottle balancing dangerously on the arm of the sofa. 

Hannah lived with her two younger brothers, Adam and Remy, so that promised a frustratingly cluttered residence. While Adam was a college freshman, Remy was only a high school sophomore, and had taken it upon himself to act like Gar was at least five years younger, not one. This generally included just verbal provocation whenever the Logans were visiting, but now that Gar was staying for an extended period, there was no telling how far the bullying may go.

Since a 24-year-old girl, a college boy, and a high school boy tend take a lot of space to stretch their legs out comfortably without problem, the Diutullio house was reasonably large, its layout involving two normal levels and a full-fledged, finished basement. The latter of the areas was to become Gar and Temperance's new quarters. There were two bedroom sized areas, a bathroom, and a large rec room, all fully furnished for the enjoyment of the family and, now, the Logans. Temperance had been assigned the off-white-painted, seashell decorated office, which housed a comfortable futon, and Gar was left with the jungle green, disinfectant-smelling room with the lumpy sofa and the buckets of old Mad magazines.

The funeral was on Tuesday, at a small chapel near the house. Gar noted that there were few people actually related to Matt present. In fact, the only actual relations beside Temperance and himself and Matt's mother (Gar's Aunt Judy) were Gar's Aunt Mia and Uncle Teddy and their young children. Mia was the youngest sister of Gar's father, and she and her family lived in Nevada now, on a cattle ranch. They looked surprisingly chipper to be at a funeral.

The service hadn't rolled on for more than about half an hour. Matt's mom had delivered the eulogy, which had proven to be quite short. Considering that Matt had grown up with his dad after his parents divorced, there weren't very many family stories or fond, childhood recollections. The most vivid memory Judy Logan could remember was the time when her husband accidentally punched Matt off the family boat when they went to the Everglades on vacation, giving him a black eye and a horrible cold from floating around and inhaling so much water while his parents tried to find the life preserver, and eventually had to blow up the entirely deflated intertube they had stashed under some crap.

Now, at about 7:00 AM on Tuesday morning, as Gar lay perched on his makeshift bed, with the sun rising outside, he realized that in the whirl of the past days, he had forgotten to do one thing: tell his girlfriend where he was going.

Gar's mind raced. What time did Raven usually wake up? Would she be angry if Gar woke her up? Of _course_ she would, all girls need their beauty sleep! Except for one who just plain doesn't sleep…

* * *

Terra was already wide awake and sipping on a can of Dr. Pibb (all the dinky grocery store near her apartment building sold) when her cell phone rang. Her dad had stayed late at his office last night (meaning he'd not come home at all) and Terra's sister, Kirstia, who was fast asleep in the back bedroom, could sleep through anything, despite her restless pregnant state. The babies were due anytime, so while her husband worked extra to get all his hours in, Kirstia was crashing at the Markov home, putting Terra on the sofa. 

Anyways, her Star Wars ringtone didn't wake anyone except for Princess Mononoke, Terra's scraggly cat, who was dozing on the girl's feet.

"Hello?" answered Terra, picking up the phone and not bothering to use hushed tones. She was shocked to hear a male voice respond. Guys never called her, for some odd reason.

"Hey, Terra," said Gar's voice. "You awake?"

"Uh-huh," she answered. "What are you doing? It's, like, the middle of the night."

Gar glanced at the clock. It was 6:58 AM. "How are you're braces doing, Metal Mouth?"

"Fine, I guess," Terra replied, getting up off the couch. Princess Mononoke hissed at the sudden movement, but Terra ignored her and continued into the kitchen to toss her Dr. Pibb. It had gotten flat. Clicking on the florescent light above the sink, Terra leaned against the counter. The sun was just starting to show outside over the tops of the neighboring buildings. The early morning work traffic was beginning to sound like its usual hurricane force.

"Can you do me a favor?" asked Gar's voice.

"Sure," said Terra, her eyebrows raising in question. This was potentially dangerous. Hopefully it wouldn't involve eating anything hard or chewy, or Terra would have to decline, since there was the slight chance of losing a few teeth.

"I need you to call Rae at some point and tell her to call me tonight or this afternoon or something, 'kay?"

Terra was baffled. "Why don't you just tell her yourself? You'll see her in, like, half an hour, won't you?"

Terra heard Gar take a deep breath. "No, I'm in Madison, CA, like, two hours south of school. My cousin died, and I have to move in with his girlfriend, so I'm here for the week to get settled. And as far as I know, Rae has no idea where I am, or if she does she didn't hear it from me."

"Gosh…" hummed Terra in sympathy. "You and Tem have really had a hard time with this family deal, haven't you?" Gar let out a laugh in response.

"So you'll call Raven, or talk to her when you go back tonight, okay?"

"Sure thing," answered Terra, and the two said goodbye and hung up. Left alone in the kitchen, with only the mewing of Princess Mononoke in the den, Terra picked back up her phone and dialed Raven's cell.

* * *

"Rae, you're phone's ringing!" 

Raven had been combing her hair in front of the mirror when Kori's shout snapped her out of her reverie (about Gar, of course). Sure enough, perched atop Raven's bed, her purse was playing Eye of the Tiger (the result of letting last year's track team play with her phone at practice).

"It's… Terra!" Kori read excitedly as she fastened her tie and threw the phone at her violet-haired roommate, who caught it quickly and flipped open the top.

"Hello?" she answered, walking into the bathroom for privacy as Kori continued with her tie.

"Rae!" squealed Terra, nearly busting Raven's eardrums. "Guess who I just talked to?"

"Uhhh…" Raven was speechless. "Henry VIII?" she guessed. They were studying him in World History, and all of Terra's friends were shocked to learn that one of England's most memorable kings was as ravenous of an eater as their blonde companion.

"Your boyfriend, silly!" replied Terra into the phone.

"You talked to him?" Raven was somewhat outraged. Why had he called Terra and not his own, beloved girlfriend?

"He's in Madison, CA," Terra went on to say.

"Yeah," interrupted Raven. "Rob told me that when I first saw him on Sunday. He said Gar had already left. His, umm, cousin died, right?" _Without saying anything to me, his girlfriend,_ Raven thought angrily.

"Yeah. He had to leave really quickly," Terra's voice said. "But he's up if you want to call him, okay?"

Raven felt her heart flutter at the thought of getting to talk to Gar. It had been, what, two days already? Way too long.

No more than thirty seconds later, Raven was punching in Gar's cell number on her phone. "I'll come to breakfast in a minute, Kori," she called as the redhead traipsed out the door and into the hall.

_Ring. Ring. Ring. _No one was answering. This wasn't good.

_Ring_. Raven looked at the clock. 7:03. Terra had said Gar was awake…

_Ring. Ring._ Raven pressed the _end_ button on her cell phone and sighed, looking absent mindedly out the window. Where was he? She dialed again and, this time, waited through all the rings until Gar's voicemail played.

"Hey, this is Gar. I'm not here right now, so leave a message after the beep. _Beeeep_."

Raven forced out a hurried message. "Hey Gar, it's me, Rae. Terra told me to call you, but you didn't answer, so I left this message, obviously. Just… get back to me when you get this message. I… I love you, And I'm sorry about your cousin." Raven paused. "Bye." With a flurry of reluctance, the girl stuffed her phone back in her purse and dashed to catch up with Kori.

* * *

"Gimme the milk." 

Gar shuddered and turned to face Remy, who was standing directly behind him, like the shadow-faced dictator he came off as.

"You're blocking the fridge, dorkus," Remy repeated, shoving Gar aside to grab the 2 milk on the door shelf.

"Hey, no pushing," barked Hannah the table, where she sat reading the newspaper and prodding her fork at a stack of waffles. "Need anything?" she asked Gar kindly, ignoring the look of disgust she received from her youngest brother.

Gar shook his head in response and proceeded to reopen the refrigerator and continue preparing his bowl of Cheerios. He was delighted to find that Hannah had purchased soymilk expressly on his part.

Mornings at the Diutullio household were chaotic. They rivaled a world war in amount of violence. Gar couldn't count the amount of times he had been insulted, shoved, or mocked by Remy. These remarks or actions were usually followed by a warning from Hannah, though Remy was prone to ignoring these.

Remy Diutullio was disgustingly good-looking for someone with such a repulsive interior, and a negative outlook on anyone lower than him on the social ladder. He had dark, straight hair about down to his ears, that swung lazily into his eyes in an annoyingly handsome manner. He was tall and lanky and skinny, but muscular as well, boasting long legs. He appeared perpetually bored and haughty, but handsomely so.

Adam Diutullio, on the other hand, whom Gar hadn't yet seen on this trip, was heavyset and blonde, with his nose constantly buried in a sports magazine. He had once advised Gar not to sit on the coffee table, since it had once broken under the weight of their dog, and Hannah made Adam repair it himself, but that was pretty much their only communication.

Gar waited until Remy had left the room to take his seat at the table with Hannah.

"Sometimes I can't wait until he moves out," hissed Hannah. Gar nodded amiably and shoved a spoonful of cereal into his mouth. It tasted like his sleeve.

"I feel guilty, you know?" she continued. "I'm his 'mother-figure' now. But I can't help it. He's a pig." Gar had to smile at this. Hannah was one of the farthest things from a "mother-figure" Gar thought he would ever see, with the possible exception of Terra. Having played soccer since she was seven, Hannah had legs built like that of a man, and her skin was deeply tanned, combining with her golden blonde hair to create that Barbie look. Despite the stereotypical blonde-babe exterior, however, Hannah was an awesome cook, and a Nazi when it came to being in charge. Or when it came to Remy, now that Gar reflected on it.

Temperance came upstairs not long after this, looking rather grouchy and disoriented, dressed in all black even for sleeping. Seeing someone familiar jogged Gar's mind and reminded him to, for some psychic reason, check his voicemail. Unfortunately, it was at this point that Hannah asked for some help with her laundry (Adam and Remy sure had some weird stains on their white undershirts), since there was so much of it. This took a good hour and a half, as they were interrupted by Remy, who was in a desperate search for his car-keys (they were in his backpack).

By the time they finished, it was about 9:00. Gar thought at this time to check his phone, but Hannah announced that they were taking a trip to Lowe's and Bed, Bath & Beyond to get Gar a real bed and to make the two's new rooms feel "more like home". After finding Gar a decent bed and spending half an hour trying to decide on the width of the windows in Temperance's room (for the curtains), the three ate an early lunch at McAllister's Deli. While they were waiting for their food, Gar reached for his phone in his back pocket, but remembered that he had left it on his bed, or rather, his sofa.

It was 11:45 when they got home, and the first thing Gar did was begin to dash down to his new bedroom. However, Hannah stopped him at the top of the stairs to get him to help her unload the pieces of the bed from the back of her 4 - Runner. Once they got it downstairs, into Gar's room, and set it all up, mattress included, it was well after noon. When they had to move the sofa out, Gar tossed his cell phone onto the nightstand without a thought about checking his messages. By the time they had the entire task finished, with no help from Temperance (who was, incidentally, lounging upstairs watching MTV), it was 1:16, about half an hour after the end of Gotham Prep lunch hour, and about twenty minutes before the break between classes. Finally, after about six hours, Gar checked his phone, in the safety of his new room.

"_Hey Gar, it's me, Rae. Terra told me to call you_…" Gar grinned ear to ear at Raven's voice; Terra had told her! Give that girl a medal! Unfortunately, it was fifteen more minutes until Gar could actually call the girlfriend in question without getting her detention from their biology teacher, Mrs. Gammel. All he had to do now was wait.

_1:18._ Gar, feeling a growl in his stomach, lifted himself from his bed and traipsed upstairs to find something to eat.

_1:20_. After selecting a bag of caramel Rice Cakes, Gar slouched onto the couch with his sister to watch MTV.

_1:26_. Repelled by the sight of Mariah Carey in something resembling a bathing suit with diamonds encrusted in the spandex, Gar got up to return the bag of Rice Cakes and got distracted by Hannah, who was preparing her famous vegetable lasagna for dinner.

_1:31_. After talking to Hannah for exactly five minutes, Gar returned to his room and leafed through a Cosmogirl of Hannah's that had been stashed under the now-moved couch.

_1:35_. Gar started to dial Raven's number, but decided that the clocks at school might be a few minutes off from those here. Slumping over on his bed, Gar decided to wait another minute or two.

_1:35:59_. Gar, no longer being able to wait, dialed Raven's number, his finger's shaking.

_Ring, ring, ring_. Gar's heart was racing. Was this how a heart attack felt, Gar wondered?

She picked up on the fourth ring. "Hello?" _Gosh_, thought Gar. _She even sounds gorgeous. _

"Hey, Rae," said Gar, attempting to sound cool and collected, but most likely ending up sounding obese and female. "It's me. Gar." _Like she couldn't read her Caller ID._

"Oh, hey." Raven had a smile in her voice. "I'm so glad you called. How are you?" Gar was about to answer, but Raven seemed to feel the need to correct herself.

"Well, duh, you aren't fine or anything, but still, how are you?" she said quickly. Gar laughed a little.

"I'm fine now," he answered softly.

"Good," said Raven, her voice sort of trailing off.

No one said anything for a few moments; no one needed to say anything, really. It was funny how they could do that, just sitting there not saying anything, but having the phone there to monitor the other's breathing, keep making sure they weren't alone.

When someone did speak, it was Raven again. "I was worried about you, when Terra called me this morning," she said. Gar could hear the bustle of the Gotham Prep hallways in the background, so apparently class was dismissed by now. It was, by the clock, time for band, and quite a good thing that Gar had called when he did. Just the thought of him having called while Raven was in the bandroom subjected his mind to thoughts that completely redefined the term _"Truth is stranger than fiction"_.

"So how are… things?" It was obvious Raven was trying to get Gar to talk to her, maybe come out of his state of shock (Oh, what a nice thing for a girl to do), so Gar tried to humor her.

"Fine," he said. "You would hate my new brothers. All-American, body-building athletic-types. Well, Remy is more into punching me into walls than playing sports. But Adam's totally into the whole Sports Illustrated and protein supplements thing. I _so_ fit in."

Raven gasped falsely. "Are you being _sarcastic_?" she wanted to know jokingly. Usually she was the one who made these kind of comments.

"Maybe you're rubbing off on me," suggested Gar.

"That sounds vaguely obscene, like perhaps a part of my body has become permanently stuck to you as a result of too much physical contact." This sounded kind of obscene in itself to Gar, but knowing Raven, he could assure himself that all perverse comments said by her were one-hundred percent deliberate. She was, after all, in band and, above that, on drumline, the mother-ship of perverse remarks.

"That sounded kind of sick…" replied Gar, stating the obvious.

"And I meant it that way, too," Raven retorted. Gar was about to come back with some sort of comment, possibly regarding to the commonly-heard-of loss of virginity in the bandroom closet, when his girlfriend interrupted his thoughts.

"I have to go," she said. "I'm nearing the bandroom, and it sounds like Scott's at it again with the whole camera thing, so I'd better go in there and hold Fizzy down before she does something else drastic again, okay?"

"Yeah, sure." Beast Boy tried to sound cheery, and "chipper" (A term his English teacher used), but it came out monotone and sort of hoarse.

After a brief goodbye, Gar pressed the "Off" button on his phone with about as much fury as he could ever muster, and threw himself down onto his bed for pretty much no reason at all.

"This is all Matt's fault," he hissed at thin air, dropping the phone onto the floor where it came to rest under the dust ruffle next to some dust bunnies. Gar felt as though he might sneeze.

"What's Matt's fault?"

Instead of sneezing, Gar yelped sharply and tumbled off of the mattress, propelling the cell phone further into the dusty, cave-like space. He hadn't seen his sister until now, but she seemed to appear quite comfortable in his doorway, picking at one of her fingernails as though she had been there for several geological ages. Instead of being clad in _all_ black, she was just sporting an outfit made _mostly_ of black. This outfit consisted of some black pants and a grey, long-sleeved T-shirt from some church or another. The eyeliner had come to be ever-present, along with the rather painful-looking and crude studs in her ear. Though Gar hadn't the heart to tell her so, he had always thought that the whole Goth/punk look made her appear as though she had just found out she was diagnosed with an incurable disease, and she had made some sort of Anti-Color pact with herself and gone into a deep depression due to the horrible shock, since she was just going to die in a couple of months anyways.

Well, that was just his opinion.

"Come again?" From his new, accidental position on the floor, Gar turned to face Temperance, his eyebrow raised.

"I said," she replied, coming to stand further inside her brother's room, "What are you saying is Matt's fault? You heard me."

Gar pushed himself up off the floor and shrugged. "I don't know. Having to come here, I guess. And now I can't find a good time to talk to my girlfriend, which isn't good because we've only been going out for-"

"You mean, that Gothic girl?" Temperance said casually. This was the meaning of the phrase _"Pot calling the kettle black"_, Gar reasoned, but decided, in his best interest, not to say anything.

"She isn't Gothic," Gar argued in Raven's defense. "She just has purple hair… And a couple more piercings on her ears than some people."

"So you've never seen the one on her bellybutton?" Temperance appeared shocked at the fact that no, Gar hadn't ever seen Raven's bare abdomen.

"No… Why would I?" Gar hoped his younger sister wouldn't answer this.

"I don't know," she responded, much to the triumph of Gar's hopes. "I had PE with her last year, and we all had to change in one room, so I got a pretty good look at that girl all _au naturel_…"

"Not what I asked," interjected Gar as quick as his lips could move. "Just, what did you say about her bellybutton?"

Temperance giggled in a way her brother had never heard her laugh before. "Sorry, it's just you sounded so funny… _'What did you say about her bellybutton?'…_ Okay, yeah, it's pierced. Her bellybutton's pierced. Just one of those little studs with the silver balls on the end, you know? Nothing real fancy."

Gar was slightly taken aback by the fact that he had known Raven for more than three years (Even if he was MIA for one of them) and had never known this. Why did his sister know something about Raven that Gar himself didn't know? Well, _sure_, Gar knew tons of stuff about Raven that Temperance didn't (He was, after all, the girl's _boyfriend_), like the time in seventh grade that Raven got her butt stuck in the bandroom trashcan, and they actually had to break the can to get her out, or, for example, what kind of underwear Raven wore (Gar only knew this after an experience a couple of days ago when Fizzy pantsed Raven just as Gar was walking through the door. And what did Gar have to say about this traumatic happening? Well, he never knew Raven was so fond of cherries. Or Victoria's Secret, for that matter.)

"Do you two kiss?" Temperance said, changing the subject as she came to rest on Gar's bed. Why she wanted so badly to talk to her brother, Gar had no idea, but he didn't quite oppose the thought. If it weren't for his sister, after all, Gar would be wallowing in loneliness alone rather than wallowing silently in the company of said sister.

"Yes," he answered truthfully. "We do. Why wouldn't we?"

Temperance didn't answer. "Do you do _more_ than kiss?" she wanted to know now. Gar got her meaning immediately and grimaced.

"We go to a _private boarding school_, Tem," he responded. "We aren't even allowed in each other's dorm buildings, much less dorm rooms. So what do you _think_?"

"Just don't be fathering any little nieces or nephews any time soon, 'kay?" Temperance said as a last statement before leaving Gar alone, staring at the ceiling again.

* * *

"So did you talk to the boyfriend yet?" 

Raven watched warily as Terra eyed a slice of pizza and slapped it down onto her plate, splattering grease onto the red tray and possibly onto Terra's white school shirt. It was dinner at Gotham Prep, and the blonde had returned to school only an hour before, sporting the already-famous orange braces. She had been right; the bands did make her teeth look vaguely orange.

"Yeah," answered Raven. "I left a message this morning, and he called me back after biology."

Terra took a piece of strawberry shortcake from the desert table and nodded amiably. Apparently, her three days without the ability to eat properly had rendered her starving, and she was making up for it by stuffing her face at every chance she got, or at least while she was still too doped up on painkillers to notice how bad each bite hurt.

As Terra took her tray to the table, Raven took to her next task: deciding between shortcake or poundcake. Actually, they looked similar, and probably tasted identical, but Raven liked thinking that the food here was better than it actually was. She was just picking up the poundcake when a voice behind her, like ice, stopped her in her tracks, and she was overwhelmed with the smell of perfume.

"Do you really need that?" Maya wanted to know. Her Lumaini boots clicked as she traipsed up to the desert table, leaving the scent of her perfume in the air.

"Hello, Maya," Raven said through clenched teeth. The poundcake in her hand was shaking from her concentration on trying not to go psycho and slice Maya's face clean off her body.

Maya gave Raven a fleeting smile. "Likewise," she replied. "But really, think about it." He fingers uncoiled and took the plate from Raven. With spite, Raven watched as Maya set the cake down on her own tray. "Don't want to get any more pudgy than you already are." With that, the girl clicked away, back to her own table, her newly acquired cake in hand.

"She just called me fat," Raven hissed, sitting down beside Terra a moment later. Terra looked over her shoulder at the girl in question, and her blue eyes narrowed.

"That snake," the blonde muttered. Across the room, Maya, accompanied by Carina and Shauna (her cronies), threw a sort of death glare at Raven, who immediately whipped around and began vigorously slurping at her iced tea.

"Don't look at them," she whispered to Terra. "Don't let them know you care what they think." Terra did as told, but only because she didn't want her grease-smothered pizza (the best kind out there) to get cold.

Though she was trying to do her best to not let Maya's remark get to her head, Raven still found it rather hard to take a bite of her salad, as the lunch ladies had been sadly out of lo-cal Italian dressing and she had had to resort to the good but fully fattening 1000 Island dressing instead. Was it her imagination, or could Raven almost _see_ the calories?

"Hey Metal Mouth," Rob greeted Terra, sitting down beside her. Terra narrowed her eyes at him, but couldn't actually respond without spraying Rob with the chewed up cheese that wasn't already lodged in her brackets.

"Smile for us," commanded Kori as she and Vick took their seats at the table. Kori had never actually had braces (her teeth were perfect the way they were, the lucky duck), so she had always been under the impression that having such a thing was a brave and painful undertaking.

"Do they hurt?" Kori asked in amazement as Terra showed off her new appliance-filled mouth.

"Not anymore," Terra answered coolly, all the while subtly attempting to remove another string of gooey American cheese from underneath her wire.

"Not when you're all whacked up on Ibuprofen, they don't," Rob muttered,receiving him a death-glare from the metal-mouth in question. "I'm just saying," he added quickly. "Anyone on painkillers is a scary thing, but _you_ on painkillers…"

"Good point," said Vick, wincing slightly at the thought. "Kind of makes me lose my appetite…" He motioned at the large pile of high-carb and high-calorie foods set in a colorful array on his plate.

"How do you eat all that?" Rob wanted to know, glancing down at his single hamburger and one serving of fries.

"You okay, Rae?" asked Kori, looking over at Raven, who was sipping on her iced tea and ignoring her salad.

"Maya Parrish called her fat," Terra said bluntly. Kori gasped.

"That… that…" Kori either couldn't find a word to describe Maya, or couldn't say what was on her mind. It was probably the latter, as the redhead's mind worked rather like the TVs in the boys' dormitory building (Strangely, the girls seemed to be trusted without the extensive bleeping), not allowing her to say anything that could possibly be harmful to any young ears.

"That witch!" Kori finally went with, either as a substitute or an actual insult.

"Funny," commented Terra. "That's what Maya usually calls Rae, here."

"_She's_ the witch," Raven said finally. "She doesn't have any business teasing me about my hair."

"Seriously," agreed Terra. "_You_ aren't the one who has to drench her hair in _Tres Semme_ to make it look halfway decent."

"Just ignore her, Rae," suggested Kori. "I mean, you _aren't_ fat, so just don't listen. Maybe she'll back off."

Too bad none of them knew how wrong Kori could be.

* * *

"How do you feel about going back to school tonight?" 

Gar couldn't help from beaming as Hannah passed him the lemonade pitcher from the fridge.

"Really?" he asked excitedly. "Tonight? Like, before dinner?"

"Sure." Hannah looked a little surprised that any teenager could be so excited to return to school.

"Noooo!" Temperance wailed in pretend hysteria from her seat at the kitchen table. Gar put his lunch down in the place beside hers and took a sip of his lemonade.

"What time, do you think?" he asked Hannah, who passed him a bag of Lays in response.

"How does 5:30 sound?" Hannah offered. "That'll give you half an hour to get to dinner."

"Perfect!" answered Gar, tossing the chips onto the table. "I'll be right back."

Without hesitation, he darted off to the basement stairs and nearly tumbled down them, he was moving so fast. Gar was in his room, searching for his cell phone, before two seconds had passed. He found the phone on his bed, and started dialing. With luck, Raven hadn't left lunch yet.

_Ring. _"Hello?"

"Raven!" Gar sighed with relief. He could hear the lunchroom in the background. "Hey! I have good news."

"What?" Raven's voice was higher pitched than usual.

"I'm coming home tonight, before dinner!"

"Oh, Gar, that's great!" Gar could hear his girlfriend smiling, almost. There was a long pause before Raven's voice came back, saying, "Okay, I'll see you tonight. I've got to go now. Terra's about to tear me apart to talk to you."

"Okay, see you later," replied Gar.

"Bye."

* * *

Raven pressed the Power button on her phone. 

"You didn't let me talk to him!" wailed Terra, her brow furrowed.

"He had to go eat lunch," lied Raven, only guessing it was lunchtime for him, too. Her heart felt like it had grown about three sizes just in the minute or so that she had been on the phone with Gar.

Terra had was about to open her mouth to complain, when the end-of-lunch bell rang, or more like, "blared like a siren". Before she could hear anymore out of her blonde best friend, Raven was on her feet and headed out of the lunchroom, her purse in hand. She had already taken the liberty to throw away her trash and clean up her part of the table, all so she could make a quick escape to biology. After yesterday's incident with Maya, Raven had been, whether or not she was conscious of it, trying her hardest to avoid another confrontation of the sort.

The stairs to the second floor were empty when Raven reached them, since no one had arrived there yet, it being only half a minute after the end of lunch. Unfortunately, no sooner had the girl climbed the first five stairs than a bone-chilling noise reached her ears: the _click-click­_ of three pairs of outrageously expensive shoes.

"I think that the pasta salad totally gave me some sort of allergic reaction," said the sort of squeaky voice of Carina. "Do I look… _puffy?_"

"I'm loving that lip gloss, Maya," said Shauna. "It's _so _you."

"Thanks," answered Maya, with a sigh that might have said, "I tire of you telling me how lovely I am."

Raven hurried up the stairs as fast as she could without tripping over her Birkenstocks, but it apparently wasn't fast enough.

"Carina, Shauna," said Maya. "I believe I left my bookbag by the lunchroom. Will you two go and get it for me?" Shauna and Carina uttered their answers and dashed back off to fetch their ringleader's bag, leaving Maya and Raven alone in the stairwell.

"Why so fast?" Maya asked, her voice saccharine.

Raven stopped in her tracks.

"You know, Rae," said Maya. "I thought that back in September, when I warned you to stay away from Gar, you understood the gravity of the situation… I know now that it was silly to think such a thing of you."

Raven turned to face Maya, furrowing her eyebrows. "You _really _thought I'd stay away from him?" She almost had to laugh.

"I'm not just a girl who knows what she wants," Maya said with a half-smile. "I'm also a girl who _gets_ what she wants, understand?"

Raven's mind was moving at a mile a minute. "You mean, you didn't want me to be with Gar just so _you_ could seduce him and have him all to yourself? You sicko… Do you really think he'd-"

"With the right persuasion," Maya interrupted. "But think about it, Rae. You couldn't even keep your own parents. Do you think you'll be able to keep your little boyfriend much longer?"

Raven seriously would have hit Maya right there if the stairwell door hadn't opened at that moment, bringing in an influx of students, ages 11-18, all hurried to arrive at their next class in reasonable time. In moments, Maya had disappeared back down the stairs, out of sight. Fingering the handle of her purse, Raven turned on one heel and climbed the stairs two at a time, away from Maya as quickly as possible.

* * *

"So what time did you say he should be here?" 

Raven looked down at her cell phone again. "5:30. He's almost ten minutes late…" Terra snorted with laughter.

"Yeah, Rae," she said lightly. "And I'm sure if _you_ were traveling from someplace three hours away you would be totally on time!"

"I'm not worried," argued Raven. "I just really want to see him is all."

"Riiight…" nodded Terra with a wry smile.

"And you would know," Kori countered. "You haven't ever even _had_ a boyfriend."

Terra took a moment to consider this. "True…" she said quietly.

Due to the unbearable anticipation of getting to see her boyfriend again so much sooner than she had thought she would, Raven had been extra jumpy in the dorm room, getting up to check the window overlooking the parking lot every thirty seconds, and Kori and Terra (but mostly Kori) had opted to take their roommate on a brisk walk to get her mind off of Gar. This hadn't really worked, though, as Raven began checking her cell phone every so often to monitor the time. Instead of walking, they had had to settle with sitting on a bench next to the visitors' parking lot, where Hannah's silver BMW X5 (Gar had described it to Raven earlier in a phone conversation) was nowhere to be spotted.

"Twelve minutes late," muttered Raven after a couple more minutes of waiting.

"He'll be here Rae," Kori assured Raven.

"Oh, she's just excited," Terra said jokingly to Kori. "Her furnace is alight," she added, remembering a line from the movie, _In Her Shoes_, which their Health class had watched only a few days ago so they could learn first hand about the dangers of desire and sex and stuff like that. No one had really learned much from it, unfortunately. All the girls just spent the whole time making fun of Rose and Maggie's step-mom and marveling at the fact that the school was letting Coach Durbin show them a movie with so many bad words in it.

"Rae, is your furnace alight?" Terra asked Raven just as a car pulled into the parking lot; By the looks if it, it was indeed a silver BMW X5.

"Gar!" yelped Raven, hurrying over to where the car was swerving into a parking space while Terra and Kori, still on the bench, mocked her exclamation.

Temperance got out of the car first and, seeing Raven, called out, "Gar, you'd better hurry before your girlfriend wets herself with excitement." Raven didn't even have time to be angry, because the second Gar was out of the car, she had left her spot on the curb and had her arms around his neck like a noose.

"Whoa," marveled Temperance, turning her head from the curb to where her brother and Raven stood. "Did you, like, teleport or something?"

"It's so good to see you!" Raven said after the two had finished hugging.

"Good to see you, too," laughed Gar.

"How cute," commented Kori, still seated on the bench. "Don't you think?" she asked, turning to Terra.

"PG-13 is more like it," observed the blonde. "Whoa, now _that_ is some intent tonsil hockey…"

"Terra…" If Kori hadn't been used to Terra's choice of words, she might have been shocked. Instead, she just laughed and stood up, beginning to head back to the dorms now that Raven had been reunited with her beau.

"I really ought to get myself a boyfriend…" Terra muttered as she followed Kori up the front walk.

* * *

**Chapter 8 will be a while, since I've only just begun, and I have no idea how to make the plot turn out the way I want it to. If you've ever seen the episode of Kim Possible (I loved it way back when it first came on) when the cheerleading bus breaks down and they're running around that camp with the sea monster guy or something like that, then this next chapter's kind of like that (with the bus and the breaking down and the spooky woods, at least). I'm trying to make it funny, though, not spooky. **

** -Gizmobunny**


	8. Of Halloween and Double Dating

**Okay, I ditched the idea I talked about at the end of the last chapter, with the bus breaking down and stuff. This one just came to me quicker. Seriously, I got the idea and wrote the chapter in two days. So here's chapter eight. **

**Oh, and I don't own the song that Bee and Kori sing, "Do You Believe in Magic". I claim no ownership to this song. I'm being extra careful with things like this a story of my own ("Not Now, Not Ever", a tragic BB/Rae oneshot) got deleted because it had a song in it that wasn't mine. So yeah. I don't own the song an ANY WAY. **

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Chpt. 8: Of Halloween and Double-Dating

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"_They did the Mash; they did the Monster Mash."- _Bobby "Boris" Pickett

--------------------------------------------

"Vick? The class is over. You might want to wake up now."

It was Friday, October 31st, eighty-six degrees outside (and close to that inside the school, as well) and Vick Stone was asleep on his desk in the front of his seventh period English class.

Bee Cox prodded her boyfriend in the forearm and watched as he slowly came to, blinking like a newborn baby. When he saw where he was, he hurriedly grabbed his binder and his backpack and literally hopped to his feet, saying, "I just closed my eyes for a second, no need to poke me."

"Whatever happened to your 'no more sleeping' resolution?" Bee said, raising an eyebrow and following Vick as he trudged sleepily into the hallway.

"It's not New Year's Eve or anything," Vick explained shortly. "I don't have to keep any promises." Bee threw her head back and let out her signature laugh, like that of a whinnying horse, where one could see all of her back molars, and her front teeth seemed to reflect the light from the large windows in the hallways. Honestly, it sort of scared Vick. He had been dating Bee for almost a month now, but he was doubtful that he would ever get used to her crazy attitude and her boisterous mannerisms. Every time Vick thought he had finally figured the girl out, she got some new, crazy obsession, or he found out something else weird about her.

"_Come what may, come what may, I will love you until my dying day_," Bee sang under her breath as the two traipsed through the crowd to the stairwell. Vick felt himself wince at Bee's newest obsession: Moulin Rouge. She had started up about it somewhere around a week ago, and had even showed Vick the movie. Unfortunately, as a fairly un-cultured guy, Vick hadn't understood what the movie was even about.

"We should go somewhere tonight," suggested Bee suddenly, bringing Vick's hand into her own. The students at Gotham Prep were allowed to leave campus on Friday through Sunday as long as they were back by eleven and didn't, like, go to a bar or anything.

"Like where?" Vick asked dumbly, with the faint hope that Bee wouldn't be able to think of anything, and he wouldn't be subjected to an entire evening alone with her. Unfortunately, Bee piped up almost immediately with, "We should go to Margarita's!"

Margarita's was a Mexican restaurant about fifteen minutes away from the school. Vick and his friends had taken Kori there for her birthday back in August, and she gotten indigestion from the nachos and resolved never to eat Mexican food for the rest of her life. However, Vick still liked it. He was pretty fond of Mexican cuisine, actually.

"Uh, sure," he answered reluctantly. _I can't believe I'm doing this_, he though frantically.

"Great!" Bee chirped. "Then what time will we go? Six? Six-thirty?"

"Six is fine," Vick replied.

"Then I'll meet you by your car at 6:00!" Glancing up at the digital wall-clock above the stairwell, Bee's eyebrows shot up and she giggled shrilly. "Gotta go," she said. "Cheerleading practice. Love ya, Sparky!" With that final message, she danced off down the stairs, leaving Vick alone. He was just about to turn and head in the direction of the guys' dorm when a sharp, piercing voice behind him shouted out, "Hey Vick!"

Vick felt as though he was having a heart attack when he whirled around to see Terra and Gar, looking rather pleased with themselves. Terra was decked out in some black capris and an equally black sweatshirt (It was dress-down day) in honor of the holiday. Gar was just wearing jeans and a collared shirt, but he had on a "Happy Halloween" party hat (From who-knows-where) and had even donned his special orange Pumas.

"I see you two got all dressed up," Vick noted.

"Yeah," answered Gar. "I see you didn't." Vick didn't answer that.

"Why do you look like you just swallowed a lit torch?" Terra wanted to know. Her dark clothing mixed with her skinny legs and her shapeless figure made her look quite a bit like Gar's younger sister.

"Bee just asked me out to dinner," Vick said, more to Gar, who, having a girlfriend as well, would probably understand.

"Well," Gar laughed. "She _is_ your _girlfriend_, Vick, isn't she?"

"Yeah," replied Vick. "But you know I'm scared to death of her."

"Why?" Terra asked. "She's so nice! Once, she told off Katherine Moth for calling me a freak when I tripped over one of the yellow lines on the parking lot." Vick found this to be kind of sad, but felt a sense of gratitude towards Bee for defending his blonde companion.

"She's just so…" Vick searched for the right words. "Hard to understand." Gar nodded in understanding.

"I have just the perfect solution," he said after a second or two of deep thought. A devious grin fell across his face. Terra fidgeted with her sleeve and hummed a few bars of Ashlee Simpson's "Pieces of Me".

"We'll just ask Rob and Kori to tag along," Gar said with a grin.

"Like a double-date?" Terra chimed in excitedly.

"Oh my _gosh_," groaned Vick. "What did I get myself into by asking for help from you two?"

"C'mon," urged Gar, ignoring Vick's comment. "Let's go find Rob!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The trio located Rob in the boys' dorm room, where he was, off all things, brushing his teeth in front of the bathroom mirror.

"Gosh, don't you know a single thing about housekeeping?" Terra pinched her nose in an exaggerated manner when she entered the room behind Gar, who was behind Vick. All three used beds were unmade, and the fourth one was covered with all sorts of DVDs and schoolbooks and clothes. Saliva (the band, not the fluid) was blasting from a stereo perched atop the desk, which was nearly buried under CD cases and age-old homework. Terra felt a crunch as she stepped on a pencil and it broke beneath the weight of her black sandals.

"What are you all doing in here?" Rob nearly spit out his toothpaste in surprise when he saw three of his friends standing in the bathroom doorway, as he had been theatrically lip syncing to his music until just that moment.

"Why are you brushing your teeth at 3:19 in the afternoon?" Gar asked, wrinkling his brow.

"I was just freshening up to go meet Kori," Rob replied, wiping some toothpaste foam off of his face. Gar took this chance to throw a meaningful look at Vick, who sighed.

"Why don't you take her to Margarita's," he suggested quickly. "Like maybe at, say, 6:00? Sound good to you?" Rob raised one eyebrow and adjusted his sunglasses.

"But Kori _hates_ Mexican food," he wasted no time in reminding Vick. "Don't tell me you forgot about her birthday…"

"No, I didn't forget," Vick interrupted. "But can't she just order French fries or something American this time? I mean, that indigestion was probably just because of all the hot sauce she put on her taco."

"You're just saying that because it was your idea to take us all there in the first place," Rob argued.

"You guys!" Gar nearly shouted, cutting off whatever follow-up insult Vick was about to launch. "This isn't helping us at all." He turned to Rob. "He just wants to and Kori to go on a date to Margarita's so he won't have to be completely alone with Bee for an entire evening, okay?" Rob just blinked in response.

"Please?" Vick added after a moment.

"_Why_?" was all Rob said.

"Because he's scared of Bee," Terra piped up, apparently having gotten over the whole "this-room-is-so-messy-I-might-actually-barf" feeling.

"She's right," admitted Vick. "I know she's my girlfriend, but she _terrifies_ me."

Rob appeared to be considering it for a few moments, while Vick looked at his feet, Gar sat down on the closest bed, and Terra decided to try and thumb-wrestle herself (She was winning, lo and behold).

"Fine," Rob said at last. "But on one condition: you're paying for both me and Kori."

"Score!" Gar jumped up from the bed in joy.

"Okay, I'll pay, as long as you come," said Vick.

This was going to be one strange Halloween.

---------------------------------------------

Bee and Vick met by the latter's car (A bulky SUV) at exactly 6:03 PM. His heart was racing for the entirety of the time he was standing there, but when he saw Bee coming, he felt a little better. She was dressed in a pair of dark denim jeans and a butter yellow sweater set. Her black hair was in a straight, clean bun on the back of her head, and her feet were slipped into pearly, beaded slides. She actually looked normal and sort of sane, for once, like someone who was fairly bearable to look in the eye and talk to.

"Hey, Sparky," Bee called as she neared Vick, or "Sparky". "Let's get this show on the road!" Then, she threw her head back and let out another one of her maniacal laughs, and all of Vick's "Normal Evening" feelings vanished into thin air.

As Vick opened the passenger side door for Bee, he glanced over to where Rob and Kori sat patiently in Rob's car, waiting for Vick to pull out so they could follow him secretively to the restaurant. They had tried to convince Gar to bring Raven along as well, to make it a triple-date of sorts, but the couple had decided to stay behind and keep Terra company. They had had planned for weeks to spend Halloween in the girls' dorm room (It was cleaner and, thus, had more space) watching _The Amityville Horror_ on the 10" TV and eating Dots.

"It feels so good to leave the campus," commented Bee as the SUV left the school's gates. She stretched her arms above her head and yawned. As subtly as possible, Vick looked in the rearview mirror to see Rob's car coming out the campus gates several yards behind them.

To fill the approaching awkward silence, Bee reached forwards and pressed the Power button on the car radio.

"Oh, I love this song," she laughed as "Stickwitu" began playing from the speakers. "Isn't it _so_ sweet?" Vick nodded in fake agreement and concentrated un-movingly at the road in front of him. Bee changed the station.

"I love this song, too!" she exclaimed. It was "Move Along". In the next minute, Vick learned that Bee also "loved" or "totally loved" at least ten other songs, including but not limited to "SOS" (by Rhianna), "Fight For Your Right to Party" (by the Beastie Boys), and some 60s rock song Vick only pretended he had ever heard, while Bee knew every word, or at least the ones that played before she changed the station again.

They pulled into the Margarita's parking lot at 6:11 (Had Vick been driving faster than usual, or was it his imagination?), and Vick maneuvered the car into a parking space facing the restaurant. Out of the corner of his eye, as he ushered Bee into the building, Vick watched Rob drive past the entrance to Margarita's and circle the block before heading back, just as planned.

"Oh, I haven't been here in _forever_," Bee exclaimed as Vick opened the door for her. In the orange-y lights of the Mexican restaurant, Bee's sort of tribal-looking necklace (in contrast with her sweater set and bun) seemed to stand out more than usual. The Spanish-speaking, mustachioed busboy lead Vick and Bee across the dining area to a booth in the far corner. While Bee scanned her menu, Vick kept an eye on the door. When he saw Rob enter, followed by Kori (dressed in jeans and a loose-fitting T-shirt in order to avoid discomfort in the case of indigestion), Vick whirled around to face Bee, hoping she wouldn't notice. She didn't; she was presently attempting to pronounce all the Spanishly words on the menu.

"What are you gonna get?" she asked Vick, leaning over the table. He almost didn't hear her, as he was trying to distract himself with the football game on TV.

"Vick, what are you getting?" Bee repeated, putting her hand on her boyfriend's arm. Vick turned around quickly.

"Uhhh, I don't…know…" he responded lamely, looking down at the menu. "You?"

"I'm getting the special nachos, only minus the beef," said Bee. "'Cause I'm a vegetarian, I always have trouble finding things to eat." When Vick's jaw went slack, Bee only giggled in that Bee way.

"You _did_ know I'm a vegetarian?" she asked. "Didn't you?"

"Yeah," lied Vick. "I knew." _A very strange Halloween indeed_, he mused to himself.

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"Three orders of French fries," Kori said a few minutes later as the waitress scribbled on her notepad. The girl's eyebrows went up at Kori's request, but apparently she had had weirder, as she hurried off saying, "I'll have that for you in a moment."

Rob leaned back in his seat so that it was balanced on two legs.

"You're going to fall one day and break something," Kori said simply, taking a sip of her Sprite, though she couldn't help but smile.

"Nonsense." Rob waved it off and turned to face the table so he could reach out and grab a few nachos. Drenching them in salsa beforehand, Rob stuffed them all into his mouth and chewed noisily.

"That's gross," laughed Kori as red juice dribbled onto Rob's chin.

"Why do you think I did it?" Rob was about to say, but at that moment his chair lost balance and began a backwards decent towards the fake tree placed conveniently behind the table he and Kori were sharing. For a split second, Kori started to jump up, possibly in an attempt to reach out and grab the tree before it hit anyone, However, she didn't make it in time; the tree landed right on the head of a rather large woman dining with her husband and small children. The woman shrieked at an octave no human should be able to reach, and immediately leapt out of her seat. However, she tripped over the tree and went sprawling towards her husband who was knocked over onto the floor by impact.

"Mommy got hit by a tree!" yelled one of the two children, a small girl with pigtails.

"Do it again! Do it again!" chirped the other, a rather pudgy little boy with no front teeth.

"Since when was there a tree there?" came Rob's voice from the floor.

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Across the dining area, Vick and Bee watched the whole scene play out before them, Vick with an expression of horror, and Bee with a sort of excited look.

"Hey!" she exclaimed matter-of-factly. "That's Rob and Kori! I didn't know they were coming here tonight on a date, too!" Vick rubbed his temples and tried to act as cool as possible; he ended up most likely looking distraught and prehistoric.

"Neither did I," he added, attempting to sound surprised that two of his best friends had just appeared a few yards away.

"I didn't know Kori liked Mexican food," Bee continued. "I thought it gave her acid reflux or something?"

"No," Vick said hurriedly. "Kori _loves_ Mexican food! She's practically Mexican herself."

"I though she was mostly Irish," mused Bee. "Hmm… She doesn't _look_ Mexican."

"_No_," Vick corrected himself. "I mean she just likes the food a whole lot."

"Oh." Bee took a long sip of her drink and watched as the chairs across the room near Rob and Kori got put back in order. "If she loves Mexican food so much," she said. "Then why did she order nothing but French fries?"

"She's just getting warmed up," Vick explained, wishing with all of his heart that Bee and Kori weren't such good friends, and that Bee wouldn't most likely bring this conversation up later on in the week. She was prone to doing things like this; she would repeat entire conversations of her and Vick's to other people, and Vick would hear about it later, usually morphed into something else. Knowing Bee, Kori would probably inform Vick about himself telling his girlfriend that Kori was Mexican, which she wasn't in any way. It was just one of the many things that came with dating Bee. Sort of like Moulin Rouge and the exotic, tribal jewelry.

"I sure wish this place had karaoke," Bee said randomly a few moments later, after the waiter left with their orders jotted down. Vick had ordered a couple of tacos; Bee had fancied the gigantic plate of nachos, specially ordered without beef.

"Oh," Vick said shortly. "Do you?"

"Yeah," Bee continued. "Did you know I sing?" Vick shook his head lamely, but wasn't really all that surprised; this was becoming routine.

"No, I didn't…" Vick trailed off; he couldn't finish his sentence, literally.

"_I don't wanna hurt him anymore, I don't wanna be the reason why,_" Bee sang. _"Every time I walk out the door, I see him die a little more inside…"_. Vick's jaw seemed to drop several inches, like in _The Mummy_, when Imotep spits all those flies out at Rick O'Connell. Only Vick wasn't a member of the undead.

"_Wow_," he gasped. "You're… you're really good. You should try out for, like, _American Idol_, or something."

"Ya think?" Bee chirped, tilting her head so that one of her oversized hoop earrings overlapped her cheek, like a round window. "I never thought about it before. I've just always been in church choirs back home, and stuff. And of _course_, I sing in the shower _all the time_!" This statement was apparently worthy of another toothy horse laugh. "Hey, I'll be right back, 'kay?" Without waiting for an answer, Bee dashed off, leaving her handbag on the table next to her drink. Guessing that his date was just going to the bathroom or something, Vick leaned back in his seat and looked up again at the football game on TV. He watched with a blank face as one team raced the ball up the field, and the crowd went wild.

_Quick,_ said a voice in Vick's mind. _Now's the time to get up and get outta here! What are you waiting for, idiot? She's probably on her way back _right now

"Vick?"

Vick looked up at see Rob sitting in Bee's spot, a rushed and worried expression on his face. "Do you know what your girlfriend is up to?" Vick shook his head.

"I thought she was just going to the bathroom," he answered, but at that moment, a crackly voice with a heavy Spanish accent came over the PA system, and Vick felt his blood run icy cold.

"Excuse me, but I have an announcement," said the man's voice. "For the first time ever, we have a KARAOKE ACT!" The words were amplified in Vick's ears a hundred times louder than what the cruddy intercom could ever manage to belt out.

"Here's Bee, with 'Do You Believe in Magic', by The Lovin' Spoonful!"

"Omigosh, omigosh, omigosh," Vick breathed. Was this what heart failure felt like?

"Vick?" Rob started to say, but he was interrupted by the blaring background music blasting suddenly out from some unseen boom-box behind the row of tables Bee was climbing up on top of.

"_Do you believe in magic in a young girl's heart, how the music can free her, whenever it starts, and it's magic, if the music is groovy, it makes you feel happy like an old-time movie."_

Sure, Bee was an awesome singer, as Vick had just so recently discovered, but that didn't keep him from being completely and absolutely traumatized.

"_I'll tell you about the magic, and it'll free your soul, but it's like trying to tell a stranger 'bout rock and roll._" Bee looked over at where the boys were singing and waved; Vick felt like beating himself over the head with his cup of Coke.

"Hey, where's Kori?" Rob wondered out loud, his neck craning to see the members of the crowd gathering quickly around the makeshift stage. Vick started to shrug, but then something even more horrifying than before happened: Bee leaned over and helped someone else up onto the stage. Someone with red hair and a grey T-shirt from volleyball camp.

Rob used a rather un-Christian word at that moment, and dashed over to the crowd as fast as possible, all the while muttering something about "embarrassing me in public" and "what is it with girls and their fantasies". While he would have rather stayed in the shadows of the oversized booths, Vick felt obligated to join Rob out on the… well, it wasn't a dance floor. It was just a floor.

"_If you believe in magic don't bother to choose, if it's jug band music or rhythm and blues,"_ sang Kori, swinging her red hair back and forth. _"Just go and listen it'll start with a smile, it won't wipe off your face no matter how hard you try." _Though she lacked Bee's loud, confident belting, Kori still had a sweet, angelic voice that reminded Vick of Sweet Tarts and unicorns and Hilary Duff and all things cute and fluffy.

"_Believe in the magic that can set you free,"_ they both sang, prancing across the table-stage like rock-stars._ "Ohh, talking 'bout magic."_

When the song was over, Vick contemplated darting out of the restaurant as fast as possible, but Bee caught him and grabbed his arms to steady herself as she leapt off the table and onto the carpeted floor. She threw one arm around her neck and pushed her boyfriend back towards their table, where their order had been conveniently placed.

"Look," Bee giggled. "Our food's here!" She plopped down onto the cushioned seat, moved her purse aside, and immediately shoved a guacamole-covered nacho into her mouth. "Mmm!" she hummed when she finished chewing and swallowing it. "I'm starved!"

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Fifteen minutes later, the nacho platter was squeaky clean, and Vick's own meal was nearing its end. Bee reached into her purse and pulled out her wallet; it had Tinkerbell on it. From it she removed a ten dollar bill.

"I can pay if you need me to," she offered with a large smile.

"No," Vick argued quickly. "I can take care of it."

"If you say so, Sparky!" Bee put up her wallet and money and proceeded to check her reflection in a compact mirror. However, no matter what Bee did or what she said, Vick couldn't help but think about the karaoke. _I mean, what kind of girl _does_ that?_ a voice in Vick's mind asked.

_Bee, that's who_.

"So, are you ready to go?" Vick asked as he placed the correct amount of money for tip on the table next to his and Bee's empty plates.

"Yeah," Bee piped up. "I jus gotta go to the bathroom real quick, and we can hit the road!" She let out a horse-laugh as she skipped off the ladies' room, handbag in tow.

"_Psst!_ Vick!" came a whisper of a voice which, oddly, was coming from right near Vick's butt. He turned ninety degrees to see Rob's head. The black-haired boy was on his hands and knees on the floor next to the booth.

"Rob?" replied Vick, one eyebrow shooting up.

"I just got a call on my cell phone," Rob continued. "It was Raven. She said that Terra got a Dot stuck up Gar's nose somehow, and in revenge he tried to flush Terra's Wolverine action figure down the toilet, and now our bathroom's flooded."

"Why did he flush it down _our_ toilet?" Vick wanted to know. "I mean, it's all the way across the campus…"

"Would _you_ have asked?" Rob retorted. "I just think that we'd all better get back there as soon as possible, so why don't you and Bee just finish up, and we'll go ahead and-"

"Why is Rob on the floor by our table, Sparky?"

Vick and Rob both nearly went into flight at this sudden remark, they were so surprised to see Bee standing there. Rob scrambled to his feet and started to make an excuse about looking for some change he dropped, but Vick beat him to it.

"He was looking for something," he explained. "But there's been an emergency back in our dorm room, and we have to go, so-"

"You and Kori go," Bee said to Rob. "I need to talk to Vick for a moment."

Rob nodded, and Vick wished him luck with whatever difficulties might await back at the school.

And then, Vick and Bee were alone.

"Let's go outside," suggested Bee, and the two left through the restaurant's double doors. The sun had almost vanished behind the mountains, so the air was a faint pink-ish orange. A convenience store across the street was blaring out "The Monster Mash". With dying hope of escape, Vick watched as Rob's hunter green car pulled into the traffic and disappeared down the road, back towards Gotham Prep.

"So," Vick began lamely. "You wanted to talk to me?"

"Rob and Kori weren't on a date tonight, were they?" Bee was quick to respond. "You _asked_ them to come." There was no denying it on Vick's part.

"You're right," he sighed. "I asked them to, okay?" Vick suddenly felt tired and a bit naked standing out here with Bee.

"Why?" For the first time, Bee's face lost the intense, lively expression it usually wore.

"I don't know," Vick started to say, but he closed his mouth. It seemed an eternity before the words came to him.

"I didn't feel comfortable alone with you," he admitted at last. "So I asked my friends what to do, and Gar suggested that I ask Rob and Kori to come, too."

"So you're blaming it on Gar?" Bee had to laugh a little, but when she did, her teeth didn't show. It was more of a good-natured chuckle, like perhaps Bee was looking back on some fond memory.

"Not entirely," Vick went on. "It was my fault that he gave me the advice anyways. If I hadn't bee so intimidated…"

"So I _intimidate_ you?" Vick couldn't tell if this girl was confused or angry.

"Uh…I guess… sort of…" Bee was staring Vick down. Her gaze was forcing each word out, like a toothpaste tube.

"Yes," Vick blurted out finally. "You scare the heck outta me, with your obsessions, and your intensity and…"

But he didn't get to go on, because Bee was laughing too hard. Her teeth showed, even the back molars, and her head was thrown back in joy. To be honest, Vick was almost glad.

"Well," she said after she had calmed down a little. "It's only me! Just keep that in mind, okay Sparky?"

Vick wasn't sure how to answer to this, but it didn't matter after all, because that was when Bee leaned up and over, pushed her earrings out of the way with the back of one hand, and kissed Vick, right on the lips. He felt it all the way down to his toes, down to the tips of his fingers, all the way to the pinpoint-sized tips of his buzzed hair.

When they were done, the sun had vanished, and the streets around Margarita's were dark, lit only by the streetlights. The cheesy Halloween music still blasted from the store across the street. Bee reached down and grabbed Vick's hand.

"Well, that wasn't so bad for a first kiss, now was it?" she asked boldly as the couple walked slowly across the parking lot to Vick's car. Vick only nodded and kept on smiling.

"Happy Halloween, Sparky," Bee said, resting her head on her boyfriend's shoulder.

And it was funny, because for a moment Vick had forgotten about the holiday, despite the fact that the person he feared most in the world was standing right beside him, holding his hand. Well, the person he'd feared most until just a few minutes ago. And as he climbed into the driver's seat of his SUV and Bee turned on the radio (Lo and behold, she loved the song that was on. Imagine that…), one little phrase kept going through Vick's head; five little words that would change his high school experience forevermore:

_I just kissed Bee Cox._

_----------------------------------------------------------------------_

**Chapter nine may or may not be a long wait. It's a concept I've been toying with for, like, three years. Seriously, when I came up with it, Teen Titans was still in its first season, so I really want chapter nine to be good. And there's a huge cliffhanger at the end of it, leading up to chapter ten, so I want to finish and post both at the same time. Please review!**

**-Giz**


	9. The Bad Week

**Alright, I know I said I would post chapters 9 and 10 at the same time, but I decided to go ahead and post this one, since it's been done for about a week. I'll warn you, there's a huge cliffhanger at the end of this chapter, but that's all I'm saying. Enjoy. Luv, Giz. **

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Chpt. 9: The Bad Week

-----------------------------------

"_Sometimes you're the windshield; sometimes you're the bug." _-Mark Knopfler

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"_We got cloudy skies over Gotham City today, folks, with a 50 chance of rain later into the afternoon, and highs in the mid to high 60s, a bit warm for October. Now here's 'Holes in the Floor of Heaven' by Colin Raye..."_

_Mid to high 60s my foot,_ Rob thought to himself as he pulled the comforter back over his head and let out a groan. It was colder than 60. Maybe it was even around 40 inside the dorm room. Whatever it was, Rob couldn't stop shaking. Or shivering. Whatever it was called. He just wanted to sleep.

"Dude, it's _hot_," Rob heard Gar say from across the small room.

"Could it be any hotter?" Vick added with a moan.

Rob wanted to say, "How can you say it's hot? It's _freezing_," but when he tried to speak, his throat was too hoarse, and nothing but a croak came out.

In an attempt to tell his friends of his problem, Rob decided that the only way was to croak until he got the attention of either Gar or Vick. He had been croaking for about five minutes before Vick looked over.

"Hey man, it's time to get up. Didn't you hear your alarm?"

Rob croaked some more.

"Gar, I think something's wrong with him."

More croaking.

"Is he sick?" That was Gar. In a final attempt, Rob threw the covers off and resorted to talking.

"I'm sick!" Rob tried to say, but it came out of more as, "Ib dick!" due to a stuffed up nose.

"Yes, that did indeed used to be your name," said Vick with a laugh, referring to a time in the past when Rob had been called "Dick". It was a dark time. However, his name had been changed in the fifth grade for obvious reasons.

"Maybe you'd better stay in today," said Gar. In response, Rob nodded and croaked some more. This was going to be a long day.

"Where's Rob?" asked Terra a few minutes later as she chewed noisily on a pack of 100 Calorie Chips Ahoy Thin Crisps (a fitting breakfast in her eyes).

"Sick," answered Gar, catching Kori's ears.

"Will he be okay?" she asked, more than just a hint of concern in her voice.

"No doubt," answered Vick as quickly as possible. "Just a sore throat, it sounded like." He put a tray down on the table, piled high with what seemed to be everything from eggs to toast to yogurt to things that weren't even supposed to be eaten from breakfast. The others were sure they felt the table quiver under the meal's weight.

Kori seemed to be a little more relieved after that news, and proceeded to turn to Terra. "How did studying for your Geometry test go?" Terra had been up until 1:00 studying for a Geometry test that they had today. Raven, as usual, had studied until 9:30 and spent the next hour and a half checking and double checking her World History homework. Terra hadn't done the homework at all; she'd been too busy studying.

"Uhhh… good…" Terra lied. She had spent basically the entire time going over the area of cylinders, but still hadn't grasped the concept, which was no big surprise. Terra had always been a bit slow with numbers.

"That's was just my thought," said Raven, sarcastically, placing her tray down on the table in between Gar and Terra.

"Why does he have to give us a test on Monday anyways?" Terra asked, crinkling the Chips Ahoy bag in her fist.

"What happened to your hair?" Vick asked Terra, his mouth full of half-chewed scrambled eggs.

Kori had made a futile attempt to curl Terra's straight, blonde hair this morning. However, as always, it had failed, and Terra turned out looking more like a victim of a maniacal hairdresser rather than a poor teenaged girl in search of a trendy, new coiffure. Instead of cute ringlets, Terra's hair had formed into some sort of bizarre triangular blob, straight at the top, and wavy at the bottom. To try and fix the problem, Terra had pulled her hair back into a bun. However, this did not prevent the poofy-ness, and several pieces of unruly hair were still loose around Terra's face.

"Happy Birthday," Raven said to Gar and, much to the surprise of her tablemates, kissed him on the cheek. Gar had arrived back at school the night before after spending the past three days with Hannah in celebration of his fifteenth birthday, which had been on Friday.

"Do you have your permit yet?" Kori wanted to know, and was delighted when Gar pulled from his pocket the laminated card.

"I look like a monkey," he declared as Kori studied the picture.

"I think you look more like a sloth," Vick said, leaning over to see it.

"No, he _doesn't_," Kori protested. "I think he looks more like… hmm… Chad Michael Murray."

"Ewww," commented Raven, wrinkling her nose. "But in a sick way, you're right." Raven turned to Terra for a possible response, but the blonde had become immersed in her Geometry again (From the looks of it, at least. To occurred to Raven that she could be actually thinking of anything.).

Then, the bell rang, with all of its usual blaring pandemonium, and students throughout the cafeteria began to get to their feet.

"Good luck with your test," Kori called to Terra, who grunted something in return before stomping off to the trashcans.

"Oh, I feel terrible about her hair," Kori informed Raven as the latter collected her trash from the table.

"It's not that bad," Raven lied quickly, and Kori's face brightened a little.

"Really?"

"Yeah," said Raven. "I think it looks sort of like Marilyn Monroe, only longer and a little less curly."

"You've got to be kidding," Vick muttered as Kori dashed off. "Marilyn Monroe? Marilyn _Manson_, maybe, but-" There was a sudden thud. Vick winced, and Raven watched as something resembling a muffin slide down the back of his head and drop to the floor.

"Dude, there's, like, butter on your head," commented Gar, who was just getting up from his seat, a tray in hand.

"Why do I feel like this week is going to totally suck?" Vick asked, examining the margarine on his hand with disgust.

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Raven and Gar arrived at their first period English class three minutes after the late bell had rung, due to their attempts to track down the muffin-thrower. The hallway was eerily empty as Gar turned the knob.

"_Mr. Logan_," the teacher, Ms. Anstett, said sharply when the two entered the room. "Late _again_, I see. I'm sorry, but I'll have to give you detention this afternoon." In disbelief, Gar glanced behind him; Raven had made it safely to her seat, and was now proceeding to remove her notebook from her backpack.

"Sorry," she mouthed soundlessly at her boyfriend as he came to take his spot beside her. On Raven's other side, Terra still had her head in her Geometry binder; whether or not she was comprehending what she was looking at, Raven couldn't tell.

"Gar," Ms. Anstett said from behind her desk. "Will you help me and pass out these papers?" Gar reluctantly rose from his seat and took the stack of papers on the desk; they were last week's quizzes, the ones on poetic terms and literary devices, and Gar's was on top.

"I got a _35?"_ he hissed when he was out of earshot of the teacher, and a few people in the front row giggled.

Raven looked up when Gar slapped a paper down in front of her. It read "100" in cheery, red letters, and when he shuffled through the papers to find Terra's, even her's was an "85", though she didn't even look up from her studying for a moment to assess her grade.

"Today's not my day," he growled when he was done passing out papers. Nearly everyone in the class besides him had scored in the 80-100 range, making his grade not even look like a number anymore.

"Chin up," Raven said with a faint smile, letting her eyes wander across her desk and onto the floor to her left. There was something on the floor. Something grey-ish green…

"Hey, look!" Gar turned his head to face Raven upon hearing her voice.

"I found $5.00!"

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It started raining right at the end of second period, just at the time that Kori would have normally met Rob next to the door that opened towards the walkway to the Fine Arts Complex. However, to the Rob's dreadfully untimely illness, Kori was sadly subjected to walking by herself.

She moved down the hallway with the flow of students, shuffling her emerald green Old Navy flip flops through the water and mud tracked in from outside, and pushed open the door that led back outside, towards her study hall. The rain was getting harder, and dangerous mud puddles lurked on either side of the uncovered walkway.

Kori had always had the tendency to get lost in thought while doing even the most simple of things, like, for example, walking down a walkway. As people passed, hurrying to get out of the rain, and Kori neared the building, she fell into a sort of stream of consciousness, and her thoughts trailed off.

_Why did it have to rain today?_

_Why does it rain at all? _

_Why doesn't it rain, like, Hi-C, or something? _

_Yeah, that would be cool. _

_Only it would stain our clothes. _

_I wonder if Terra got that grease stain out of her skirt…_

_She should really learn some housekeeping. _

_I wish I were a Merry Maid, like on that commercial with all the women running around, vacuuming all cheerfully and everything. _

_I bet they get paid good. _

_Splash!_

Kori had just plunged her right foot into a pit-like mud-puddle, and her leg was plastered with mud all the way up to her mid-calf. Perfect.

"Why are you barefoot?" Vick asked three minutes later when Kori tiptoed into study hall, her flip flops in hand. They had turned a shade of puke green, from the combination of the green foam and the mud that Kori couldn't get off with just a paper towel.

"I zoned out and stepped in some mud," Kori explained, "and now my shoes are squeaking every time I walk."

"So you took them off?" finished Vick as Kori sat down in the empty desk behind him.

"Yep." Kori answered. She was trying to think of what size shoe all of her female friends wore at the moment; Raven wore a size six (too small), Bee wore a size nine (too big), and Terra… Terra wore a size eight, too, didn't she?

Just right. All of Kori's other shoes were either flips flops or shoes that she wouldn't want to mess up by stepping in another puddle, but she was sure that Terra, who was infamous for not caring about anything having to do with clothes, would probably be able to lend her a pair of tennis shoes, or something.

The opportunity came a class period later in Health. Kori had decided to put back on the flip flops just to walk to her classes, but was in no way enjoying the farting noises her feet were making with every step she took. Someone with a more slapstick, bathroom approach to comedy would find it amusing; Kori thought the noise was disgusting.

"Terra, can I borrow some shoes during lunch?" asked Kori moments after Terra and Raven traipsed into the classroom, Raven laughing about how Terra had apparently run into a closed door in a futile attempt to catch it before it closed. Terra's hair had lost a bit of its puffiness, and was now sort of limp and lifeless, while still frizzing out of her ponytail elastic in all directions.

"Sure," Terra answered. "Which ones do you want?" She took her seat by the open window and wiped some rain from outside off of her desk.

"Any shoes are fine, really," Kori said quickly. She glanced at Terra's feet; the blonde had gone with a pair of durable running shoes today, thankfully canceling those out for Kori.

"Okay," Terra said absently, turning in her seat to face the front just as Coach Durbin entered the room.

"Get out you're homework," the woman said, and there was a shuffling of notebooks and paper as the students rushed to search for the homework in question; with her beast-like, muscular legs and the Nike symbol tattoo on her ankle, Rebecca Durbin was not a force to be reckoned with.

"I found it!" yelped Terra, pulling a crumpled worksheet from unseen depths of her backpack. She slapped the paper triumphantly on her desk and began searching in her purse for a pen. Unfortunately for Terra, her elbow happened to bump up against the worksheet, pushing it towards the edge of the desk. On the same note, the window was regrettably still open, and when the paper reached the end of the desktop, it fluttered not to the floor but right out the window and into the rain, where it began a spiraling decent to the ground below. When Terra looked up from her purse, newly found pen in hand, her eyebrows shot up and her jaw dropped.

"Oh, shoot," she said, only she didn't exactly say "shoot". Instead, she said something that caused Kori and Raven's heads to turn just fast enough to see Terra's homework freefalling out of sight.

"Coach Durbin?" called Terra, shooting her hand up in the air. "My homework is, uhh… in my locker. Can I go get it?" She bit her lip in anticipation.

"No," Coach Durbin said simply, and carried on with taking up homework. Terra's eye twitched with annoyance.

"Typical," she reasoned, sinking down into her seat. Raven had to feel sympathetic towards her friend, so she herself put her hand up in the air.

"Coach Durbin, can I get mine out of my locker?" Raven smiled graciously and sat up tall in her seat.

"Come right back," Coach Durbin responded, and Terra's jaw went slack.

"But you have yours!" she hissed, but Raven didn't say anything. A minute later, Kori and Terra watched out the window as Raven picked Terra's worksheet up off the wet grass and shook off some of the pooling rainwater before heading back to the building.

"Dumb luck," said Terra, still sulking.

"What do you mean?" Kori wanted to know. She was occupied with poking her flip flop and making water seep out of it.

"Rae's the only one of us who hasn't walked into a wall or gotten pelted with a muffin," said Terra, who had been told the muffin story by Raven, "or woken up with the flu of dropped her homework out of a second-story window or stepped in mud."

Kori considered this as Terra continued to wallow in self-pity. "Gar hasn't done anything like that," she mused a moment later, and Terra hummed in semi-agreement.

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Well, they were wrong. About Gar, that is. According to Dash, who had a study hall with Gar fourth period, Gar had gone to the bathroom during class and walked right into the women's' restroom without thought. Thankfully, there hadn't been any girls in there when he entered, and he nearly-immediately saw the "Tampons are to be disposed of, not thrown or stuffed down sink as a joke" sign. He left as quietly as he had come in, but was pretty sure that a couple of teachers saw him leave.

"How did you do on your Geometry test?" Vick asked Terra once they had all finished hooting with laughter.

"Not so hot," Terra replied the best to her ability, as her mouth was stuffed full of chicken fingers and honey mustard. "I totally forgot, like, half of the stuff on there, and I ended up leaving a lot blank."

"She started hyperventilating," Raven recounted. "We all thought she was going to pass out, and Mrs. Casper was seriously about to go get a paper sack from the art room."

"The whole class started going, 'Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out'," said Gar. "It was priceless!"

"I think I might have gotten by with a nice, clean 60, though," Terra said to Vick.

"Terra, you left half of it blank," Gar argued. "That's a 50, at highest, assuming that you got everything else right." Terra's face fell.

"Oh," she said, and took another bite of chicken.

----------------------------------------------------

The rest of the day went similarly: Kori ended up wearing Terra's heart-patterned high tops and got made fun of by three different people whom she didn't know; Gar failed another quiz and, while in detention, got written up for chewing gum; Terra tripped going down some stairs and ended up tumbling down the rest, landing at the feet of Randy Godfrey, a really hot senior guy twice her size who probably ended up getting a good look up Terra's skirt; Vick got hit in the head with some Old Spice deodorant while walking to his dorm room after seventh period; Rob was still sick in bed; Raven found $7.00 on a bathroom floor and got extra credit on a Biology pop quiz for knowing who the leading actor in _George of the Jungle_ was (It was Brendan Fraser, though no one could figure out why Mrs. Gammel was asking this).

It was 9:07 PM when Terra, Raven, and Kori were finished with their homework, and they were now seated on their dorm room floor, playing, of all things, Clue (Kori's idea).

"I wonder who threw that rock at dinner tonight?" said Terra, moving her "Miss White" piece into the Conservatory.

"I don't know," answered Raven. "Terra, make your accusation-thing."

"Oh." Terra took a moment to think. "Was it Mr. Green, in the Conservatory, with the… the… with the wrench?"

"Vick sure has been getting hit with a lot of things," Kori commented as Raven held up her "wrench" card to prove Terra wrong.

"It's not just - Rae, it's you're turn - him," Terra noted, rubbing her butt where she'd tumbled down the stairs. There would be a nasty bruise there in the morning.

"Yeah," said Raven, moving Colonel Mustard (comically chosen due to the fact that he clashed with her hair so badly) twelve spaces and into the Study, one of two rooms not marked off, and the only information needed for her to win.

"What do you mean, 'Yeah'?" Terra retorted. "Not a single bad thing has happened to you _all day_!"

"You even found $12.00!" added Kori.

"Maya flicked me off leaving dinner tonight," Raven suggested, but was answered with a snort from Terra's direction.

"She does that all the time," the blonde said, waving off Raven's words.

"Well…" Raven couldn't think of a good way to win this argument. "Was it Ms. Scarlet in the Study with the revolver?" she finally said. Kori held up the "Study" card in reply, and Raven marked it off on her checklist sheet.

"You know, Ms. Scarlet kind of reminds me of Maya," Terra said to no one in particular. "I mean, she had the same hair and skin, and I bet she has the same size boobs." Kori and Raven hummed in response.

"I have an accusation to make," Raven said finally, putting her checklist and cards face-down beside her on the floor. "It was Ms. Scarlet, with the revolver, in the Hall." Kori dutifully took the small envelope from the middle of the board and pulled out three cards: Ms. Scarlet, the Hall, and the revolver.

"And Raven wins," muttered Terra.

"I know I'm amazing," Raven joked. She fell dramatically back onto the carpeted floor, and her violet hair fanned out around her face like a halo.

"Seriously," Terra continued. "You've had perfect luck all day! It has to end sometime, right Kori?" The redhead was busy putting up the board game, however, and only responded with a nod.

"Just watch," Terra said with a teasing smile. "This whole week'll go by, and the rest of us will be all battered and tired, and you'll be a millionaire from all the cash you find on the bathroom floor and everything. And then, Friday night while you're asleep, a sniper's gonna pop in our window and shoot you."

It was meant as a joke, and that's how Raven took it, but she couldn't help but think about the prediction in a new light a while later while she was searching for some chapstick in her purse and came across Maya's note.

_I will get you_, it read, and Raven felt her blood get a little colder. She had laughed then. Granted, that was before the confrontation on the staircase the other week. Could Maya have been serious?

Raven tried to wave it off, but she was still thinking about it after midnight that night, while she was trying to sleep. Kori was breathing deeply, looking like an angel, and Terra had fallen asleep listening to her iPod; Raven could hear the slightest beat to some rap song Terra probably knew all the words to.

It was about 1:00 when Raven drifted off. Finally asleep, she had a dark and sort of disturbing dream in which she found Maya kissing Gar in the back of their English classroom. Raven walked up with some choice words for both Maya and her boyfriend, but as soon as she got close enough, Maya whirled around and said, "He's _mine_, now, Slager," and then she impaled Raven with a giant pole. Bizarre, yes, but it greatly disturbed Raven. She bolted awake in milliseconds and sat up straight as a board. Her heart was pounding so loud she was sure it would wake up her roommates.

For a few moments, she remembered the dream, and kept seeing it play out in the dark corners of the dorm room. Then, Terra muttered something in her sleep that sounded like the chorus of "Get Low", only with a sort of German accent, and Raven was immediately calmed down. Within moments, she was back asleep, calm and breathing deeply. She was so tired from the long day of lucky happenings that she slept straight through until her alarm went off.

But she had the dream again.

----------------------------------------------------------------

"Are you feeling better, Rob?" Gar asked the next morning as he was getting dressed. Rob answered with an inaudible groan and stuffed his head back under the covers.

"I take that as a 'no'," Vick commented as Gar yanked on his pants. Since the boy was so small, his pants dragged the ground and required that his belt be much tighter that what looked healthy. However, Gar had already grown almost an inch since school began in August, and he was now basically the same height as Raven. In spite of this growth spurt, the "standing on a step-stool to make out" rumors persisted.

"Let's get out of here before he reverts to violence," Gar suggested, grabbing his hunter green backpack from its resting place beside his own (un-made) bed. Vick obliged and followed.

"I take it Rob's still sick?" Kori asked disappointedly when the boys arrived alone at breakfast just minutes later.

"He wouldn't pull the covers off his head to tell us," Gar answered, eying the waffle bar.

"So how has your morning been?" Terra asked the boys. Her hair had been pulled into a normal ponytail today, and her feet were in perfectly ordinary American Eagle flip flops, so that she couldn't go wrong.

"Nothing _really_ bad," Vick said. "Gar fell out of bed trying to turn off the alarm clock, and I broke my favorite headphones by stepping on them." He didn't mention that he got hit by a Hi-Liter that "fell out" of a second story window; it wouldn't have added anything to the conversation. "How about you?"

"Kori burned herself with a hair straightener," said Raven, and Kori held up a rather red finger, " and Terra choked on toothpaste and nearly threw up on her only clean skirt." Vick looked at his blonde friend; she did look a bit green at the gills.

"Hey," said Kori suddenly. "Don't we have that Health test over contraception today?" Terra's eyebrows shot up and she almost choked again, this time on her Poptart.

"No," Raven replied. "That's tomorrow." Kori exhaled in relief.

"Thank goodness," she breathed. "I didn't study."

---------------------------------------------------

Apparently, Health wasn't the only thing Kori had forgotten about. She and Vick arrived in their first period Chemistry class to see the words "Test Today" scrawled on the board in big, green letters.

"We have a freaking _test_?" Vick said overly-loud, and the whole class turned to look at him.

"Oh," Kori said softly, looking at her feet as she walked to her desk.

"Watch your language, Mr. Stone," warned Mrs. Flanders, who thought "crap" was a bad word. With a groan, Vick took his seat across the room from Kori (they sat alphabetically) and pulled out his notebook to study.

"It won't be hard," said a girl named Whitney who sat behind Vick and made all A's.

"Want me to quiz you?" asked a boy named Joseph who sat to Vick's left and black Croc shoes with socks.

This was going to be a long day.

-------------------------------------------------

For such a long day, Health class sure came fast. Kori, Raven, and Terra entered the classroom for fourth period only a few seconds late with total unawareness of what Coach Durbin could come up with in the from of an assignment.

"At least we don't have a test," Raven commented as Coach Durbin stood up from her desk. She had in her hands what appeared to be large, construction paper signs with some loopy, Sharpie writing on them.

"Oh boy," Terra said sarcastically as the teacher walked around, putting one sign on each desk. When it came Terra's turn, Coach Durbin was out of signs. Kori got the last one; it said "vaginal spermicide".

"I don't even think I want to know what we're doing with these," said Raven, who now held a sign reading "birth control pills".

"This a little review for our test tomorrow," Coach Durbin announced, and a groan erupted from the class. "I'll ask you in a minute to get up and come to the front of the room with your contraception signs. Then, you'll stand in order of how effective you think you, as your assigned method of contraception, are. Understand?"

"Well, this won't be embarrassing." Terra was being sarcastic again as the people around her began to migrate to the front of the room, each clutching their contraception terms, until only Terra and a couple of tenth graders were left.

Kori felt her face flush as she stood in front of her peers; she had never been one for public speaking, and the whole contraception thing wasn't helping. She watched as the girls to her right arranged themselves in a long line of "condoms" and "birth control pills" and "diaphragms". Finally, it was Kori's turn. She moved to the end of the line, holding the sign in her hand.

It was already unfortunate that Kori's place in line was right by the door, and when Coach Durbin decided to make Kori read the sign, the situation definitely didn't get any better.

"Vaginal spermicide," Kori said in a small voice just as the door beside her opened. She looked slowly to her left. It was Randy Godfrey.

"Nice sign," he said to Kori.

-------------------------------------------------------

"I can't believe you got your head stuck in a window!" Raven put her hand to her forehead and tried to stifle a laugh as she looked at her boyfriend. Gar was gnawing on a large piece of lettuce.

"It wasn't all my fault!" he argued. "That window was possessed!" His table-mates (sans Rob, who still wasn't present) laughed. "Seriously! It fell on its own accord!"

"And it was the window's fault that you had your head stuck through, as well?" Vick joked. They were referring to an incident earlier in the afternoon in which Gar had stuck his head through the window in his sixth period study hall, and the pane had become loose and slipped down, trapping his head outside of the building. It took two teachers and several able-bodied eleventh graders to get the window back open. There was now a large, red mark on the boy's neck where the pane had hit.

"Totally," answered Gar, taking another bite of his salad.

"So how was _your_ afternoon been, Rae?" Vick asked Raven. The latter smiled and sipped on her ice water.

"I got a 100 for some Biology homework I didn't even turn in," Raven said with a smirk, "and Maya got in trouble for flicking me off during World History."

"Lucky duck," Terra muttered. "Last night, Kori and I were saying that she's probably going to get into some accident on Friday and wind up dead."

"Well, that's not morbid," Vick said sarcastically, and Terra rattled off her idea involving the sniper. When she got to the part about him shooting Raven, Gar reached down for his girlfriend's hand.

"Gar?" Raven said patiently. "Why is your hand on my butt?" Gar's face went bright red.

"It is _not_!" he argued, moving his hand quicker than he ever thought he, or anyone else, ever could manage.

"It's just so _big_," Terra marveled. "It's hard to miss."

"Are you calling Rae's butt fat?" Vick chuckled.

"No," Terra said quickly. "It's all muscle."

"Really _big_ muscle," Gar said after a moment, and Raven blushed.

"_Trojan man_," Terra sang softly, but still loud enough for Kori and Vick to hear. Vick seemed to choke on his fried chicken.

"Oh my," Kori said, blinking once.

"Not _really_!" Gar said at once, semi-frantically.

"You mean, not _yet_," Terra interjected. Raven put her Styrofoam cup down firmly on the table.

"This conversation ends _now_," she said, but her friends couldn't help but notice she was smiling.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That night, Raven slept like a baby and dreamed that she was pregnant with Zac Efron's unborn baby, so Terra and Kori decided to take her to see Buddha, who was performing live at a bar in Mexico City. When the trio arrived in Mexico, Kori and Terra got on stage with Buddha and started singing "Under the Sea" to Raven, who eventually decided that naming her baby Poseidon might not be such a hot idea. The dream came to a close with a scene in which the ceiling caved in and Kori turned purple, sprouted wings, and saved everyone. Raven woke up with an odd sense of calmness and chaotic comfort.

She got out of bed silently and turned off her alarm without waking up Kori and Terra. Closing the bathroom door behind her, she ran the water for her shower; she had been up so late helping Terra with her Biology homework that she hadn't had time to wash her hair. She shaved her legs without cutting herself and dried her shoulder-blade-length hair in a record time of seven minutes.

_This is going to be a good day_, she thought to herself as she smiled at her reflection in the fogged-up mirror.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So how's Rob?" Kori's question was becoming a daily happening at breakfast.

"He's better, actually," Vick reported.

"He cussed me out for turning on the light this morning," Gar added with a smirk.

"Yep," Terra noted. "I'd say he's well on the road to recovery."

Raven was smiling as she put her tray, loaded with a bowl of Frosted Flakes and a glass of iced water, down beside Gar's.

"Presenting, Little Miss Sunshine," Terra said in her fake announcer voice.

"Ha, ha," Raven replied. She took a long sip of water. "By the way, Terra, your hair looks nice. Seriously. What did you do to it?" All noise ceased at the breakfast table as Terra held up one, single lock of blonde hair in her right hand. Sure enough, it looked fairly presentable. What was usually piecy and stringy had become soft and straight, and where it usually frizzed it looked neatly smoothed down.

"I don't know," marveled Terra. "I didn't straighten it this morning, though. Maybe that's it…".

"It's a sign of the Apocalypse," Gar said with hushed reverence, then, with a louder voice, "Quick! Into hiding! Man the bunkers!" Kori and Vick broke into peals of laughter, and Raven smiled in her version of joyful hysteria. Terra still looked like a sort of mix between disbelieving and celebratory, as though Orlando Bloom had just walked up, out of the blue, and asked for her hand in marriage.

Things started looking up after that. Vick dodged a carton of chocolate milk headed straight for his white dress shirt; Kori found the lip gloss she thought she had lost weeks before (it was at the bottom of her purse); the lunch ladies started serving Gar's favorite soymilk again (he drank three Styrofoam cups of it); Mrs. Casper, the Geometry teacher, stopped by the table to tell Terra that, due to a grading mistake, her test grade had been changed from a 77 to an 83.

"I feel some good luck on the way," Vick commented as they left the lunch room.

Only hours later, he would be eating his words with a fork and knife.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

"Number seven is… side-angle-angle," read Mrs. Casper. Raven made a small, neat check mark on her paper. It was second period and the ninth grade Geometry students were checking their homework.

"Oh yeah," taunted Gar under his breath. "Who's gotten every single one right so far?"

"That would be you," Raven muttered.

"You know," Terra said. "Your little 'Genius-Boy' dance was almost annoying the first time. Now, I just want to punch you."

"Ditto," Raven agreed through clenched teeth as she marked #14 wrong with a small, neat "X". That was the fifth one out of a total of fifteen. Why had she thought today was going to be a good day? She'd had her turn for the past two days; today was going downhill. She could feel it.

"Hay Rae," said Terra, passing her homework up to the front of the row. It had a messy "95" scrawled across the top. "How do you think you did on last night's World History homework?" Raven felt her heart stop.

"We had homework?"

"Yeah," Gar cut in. "It was that review sheet we didn't do in class yesterday…"

He might have said more, but Raven didn't hear. She had a perfect record in World History, one that would not be blemished by a bad day such as this one.

"Mrs. Casper?" Raven's hand shot up in the air like a bullet. "Can I please go to my locker? It's important." Mrs. Casper nodded her blonde head, and Raven stood up.

"I'll be right back," Raven said briefly to Gar and Terra, who were comparing their History worksheets.

As Raven walked out the door, she barely registered the black-haired girl getting up behind her, Coach purse in hand, Lumaini boots clicking on the cold, tiled floors.

-----------------------------------------------

Raven took a deep breath as she entered the stairwell up to the third floor. As she had no classes up on the top floor of the building, it was rather inconvenient that her locker had to be up there, away from everything.

Raven sniffed hard; her nose was getting stuffed up. She had probably caught whatever Rob had. Oh, well. It was probably her own fault for making out with one of Rob's roommates. Being Gar, that is. Raven would never kiss Vick, even if her life depended on it. She never wanted to kiss a guy other than Gar as long as she lived. Other guys were annoying. Okay, so Gar was annoying sometimes, too. But not always. Raven had already put great thought into this; she would marry Gar, and then they could go live somewhere far away and have only girl children.

Thinking of marriage made Raven think of sex, which made her feel kind of fluffy and full of butterflies. She was still feeling this way when she heard it loud and clear.

Somewhere behind Raven, a boot clicked on the floor. She felt her heart quicken; that boot was familiar. Too familiar.

It was Maya.

Raven's picked up the pace to match her pounding heart. She was almost to her locker. She could make it. Just ten more steps. Nine more. Eight more. Seven more.

"Raven, wait up," Maya had the nerve to call out. Her voice chilled the blood in Raven's heart. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Raven turned to face Maya. The Indian girl's black hair was pulled back in a messy bun, and hanging from her earlobes were chandeliers of cultured-looking beads. Her skirt had been rolled at least twice, showing a bit too much of her legs for Raven's liking.

"Sure," Raven answered hesitantly. She had a basic idea of what Maya might want to talk about, and it included a certain someone Raven had been French-kissing on the way to Geometry.

"Good," Maya said simply. She bounced the toe of her boot on the floor. "I was hoping that we could come to some kind of agreement about Gar."

So Raven was right. It _was_ Gar Maya wanted to talk about.

"Can we not just leave him out of this?" Raven managed to say through clenched teeth.

"I'm afraid not," Maya answered with a smile of false sympathy. "You see, you didn't pay attention to my warnings. Am I not correct?"

Raven didn't answer. Maya moved her right hand from her hip to her purse, and Raven became suddenly aware of the bulk inside the bag, obscuring the signature Coach "C"'s.

_Oh God_, Raven thought. _She's about to pull a gun on me. She's really about to kill me_. _And only six steps away from my locker. What luck._ However, Maya's hand went right on past the clasp to her bag, and instead she fingered the handle, which was looped around her slender shoulder. Raven felt a tiny bit of relief shoot through her chest.

"Why can't you just do as you're told?" taunted Maya. Raven narrowed her eyes.

"He's my boyfriend," she said loudly, her anger giving her sudden courage. "I love him. I'm not giving him over to you."

"I had a feeling you were going to say that," Maya replied with a laugh, "but I'm a girl who gets what she wants, and I have methods of doing what I can to make sure that everything happens to my advantage. Understand?"

Raven's anger turned to fury, and then to a hatred that rose up in her and filled her lungs and her heart. She felt like she was suffocating. "Gar is mine," she managed, and the hate came pouring out in her words, dripping off of every syllable. "What in the world do you think you can do to change that?"

Raven didn't mean it as a challenge, but that was how Maya took it.

"What am I going to do?" she laughed. The noise, like some horrible, death-tolling bell, hit Raven's like a bullet. "I'm going to do _this_."

And then she pulled a gun out of her Coach purse.

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**So how was that for a cliffhanger? **

**I'm almost done with chapter 10, but I'm going away for the weekend, so it will be next week before I can get it up. It's not nearly as long as this one, just so you know. **

**Part One is drawing to a close, but this story isn't. I'm going to try and finish out the year, with Part Two taking us to June. **

**That's all I have to say, so just _please _review, okay? Thanks!**

**-Giz**


	10. Black Wednesday

**Okay, I'm so sorry about that cliffhanger. I know it was killing y'all, and I would feel the same if I wasn't the one writing this story. I tried to get this chapter out as soon as possible, so here it is. Enjoy. Luv, Giz. **

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Chpt. 10: Black Wednesday

---------------------------------

"_Listen to the sound of my head pounding, wish that it was make believe…"_ - Saving Jane, "Happy"

_-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

_What was that noise? Was that a gun?_

_Where am I? Where'd Maya go?_

_Why is everything so dark? What the heck is going on? _

_Wait- are those sirens? I wonder what happened…_

_I hope no one's hurt…_

_---------------------------------------------------------------------------_

Rob heard the gunshot all the way from his dorm room. He had stayed in bed one more day to see if his symptoms were on their way to clearing up, but he had promised Kori he would go see the school nurse if it lasted another full twenty-four hours. Now, as he sat propped up in the twin bed, he wished it was a promise he had made earlier.

At the sound of a gun, he literally bolted up in bed, all the covers thrown aside. It wasn't a noise he oftentimes heard at school, but he knew enough to tell it wasn't a good sign. Somebody had been shot at. Maybe somebody had even been shot. Exciting, yes, but not good in any way.

Rob groped around under his bed for his cell phone. If that really had been a gun, then the whole school would be filled with complete pandemonium, and no one would hear a cell phone go off. Now, who to call?

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"Okay, this section isn't in your notes, so I'll be passing out a packet. Do _not_ lose it. I don't have _any_ cop – _BAM_!"

That was how it happened in Mrs. Casper's second period Geometry class. It had been almost five minutes, but the whole thing rang clear in Gar's head. A gun had been fired somewhere, and the school had gone into lock-down mode. Now, as Gar huddled next to Terra under their desks in this silent, dark classroom, he feared not for his life, but for another.

_Raven's still in the hallway_, he had said to Terra, and later to Mrs. Casper, who wouldn't let anyone leave to make sure their two missing classmates were alright. He had protested, but his teacher wouldn't budge. They were in here for good until there was a sign that it was alright to get up and move around.

"She's fine," Terra was insisting now in a near-silent whisper from where she kneeled to Gar's left. She reached out her hand and took Gar's in her own, but Gar's face stayed adamant and unmoving.

Then, Terra's cell phone rang.

The sudden _Star Wars_ interlude was a nice break from the state of worry and confusion, but the bursts of laughter and sighs of relief were soon silenced by Mrs. Casper.

"Terra," the woman said out loud from where she was crouched under one of the empty desks up front, "contrary to popular belief, cell phone rules still apply under emergency circumstances."

"M'am," Terra responded quietly after checking the Caller ID. It was Rob. "It's one of my friends. He had to stay in his dorm today because he's sick. He's just calling to make sure we're all-"

"Call him back when we get the 'okay' from whoever's out there handling this, alright?" Mrs. Casper's eyes showed some emotion Terra and Gar had never seen in the face of a teacher. It was fear. Pure, unbridled fear. A student, possibly a student of hers, had pulled a gun on another. What teacher wouldn't be afraid at a time like this?

The "okay" they were waiting for came about three minutes later. Somewhere in those minutes, they had heard sirens pulling up in front of the building, and policemen were shouting somewhere in the building. Gar couldn't make out what they were saying. He was concentrating too hard on the matter at hand; he had to get out of here.

As soon as the door opened up and a policeman walked in, the class broke loose, and Gar made his escape, followed closely by Terra, who was still clutching her cell phone in her shaking hand.

Gar flew up the third floor stairwell, ignoring the cries of Mrs. Casper and the policeman; he was positive the gunshot had come from above, and that fact was what scared him so badly. Raven's locker was upstairs.

As soon as he reached the top of the stairs, he knew. He saw all he needed to piece together what had happened. The ambulance guys were all crowding around a gurney that they were loading into the emergency elevator at the end of the hallway.

"You don't need to be here," someone said as Gar pushed through the crowd of EMT workers. "No students allowed." But Gar kept pushing until, finally, he broke through the circle and got a good look at the body lying limply on the gurney.

The violet hair cascading over the edge of it was all he saw before he was shoved back into the hallway, where Terra was standing, her blue eyes welling up with tears. There was a clatter as the blonde's cell phone dropped to floor.

"That was…" Terra sort of choked on her words, but Gar knew what she was saying.

"Yeah," he said softly. "It was." And then, for several minutes after that, Gar held onto Terra as she cried freely. The girl didn't stop crying even when the wave of students appeared, unable to be restrained by teachers any longer. And when Vick and Kori appeared moments later, wide-eyed and blinking like newborns, they all knew, and the four of them cried together, there in the third floor hallway.

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At first, Rob was angry; he was stuck here, wondering what had happened, and in the meantime, Terra was reckless enough to just let her phone ring without picking it up. However, the anger soon turned to concern, and finally to a feeling of complete stupidity; of _course_ Terra hadn't picked up her cell phone. The whole school was probably in lockdown! A gun had gone off, for Pete's sake!

Grimacing at the headache that appeared when he pulled himself out of bed, Rob made his way to the window. The dorm room window offered a panoramic side view of the main building of the school, including a full shot of the front parking lot, where, to Rob's surprise, an ambulance and several police cruisers were parked in front of the school entrance. One cruiser started up and drove off, followed by the others, until only the ambulance and one police car remained. Rob was squinting, trying to catch a glance at the body sprawled across the gurney now being carried into the ambulance, but at that moment, his cell phone went off.

Rob fumbled for the phone, and when he at last found it, the Caller ID read "Terra". Finally.

"Hello?" Rob felt his heart skip a beat or two when he heard that Terra was crying.

"Rob?" she blubbered.

"Terra?" Rob answered. "What happened? Is everyone alright?" Terra only cried harder.

"Tell me where you are," Rob said suddenly. "I'll come find you and-"

"No," Terra said between sobs. "We're coming to your dorm. See you in a minute." The connection went dead, and Rob was left staring at the floor.

By the time he made his way back to the window, the ambulance had already driven away, followed by the police cruiser. Rob had just sat down in the desk chair, feeling exhausted and exasperated, when there was a knock on the dorm door. Before Rob could open his mouth, the said door flew open, and in came Vick, followed by Gar, who had his arm around a weeping Terra. Kori, looking dazed and pondering, came in last. Raven wasn't with them.

_She must be behind them somewhere_, Rob convinced himself, but no one else showed up.

The foursome sat down in various places. Rob offered Terra the desk chair and went to sit beside Kori on Vick's neatly-kept bed. However, even when he put his arm around his girlfriend's shoulder, there was no response. Kori just stared at the carpet, unblinking.

"What happened?" Rob finally took the liberty to ask. "Where's Raven?" he added, though he felt as though the answer might be right in front of him, in Vick's solemn silence, in Kori's empty stare, in Gar's slumped shoulders, and in Terra's endless tears.

"Well?" Rob urged when there was no answer. "What the heck is going on?" Only he didn't say "heck".

"Raven's been shot," Gar said simply, not making eye contact with anyone. His words, though the truth, only made Terra break into more tears. Feeling as though he was providing no comfort to Kori, Rob stood up and moved to where the blonde girl was sitting. He kneeled beside Terra, wrapping his long arms around her shaking body, and she cried into his neck.

"I can't believe it…" Rob said softly, peering out the window to where the ambulance had been only moments before.

"Who did it?" he asked, tearing his gaze from the window.

"No one would tell us," Vick said, his voice solemn and emotionless.

"It was Maya," Gar accused suddenly. "I know it was. It had to be. She's the only person I can think of who hates Rae enough to… to…" Rob marveled at the difference between the reactions of the four people in front of him. While Terra was sobbing her heart out and Kori had cut herself off from everyone, the guys were just angry and convicting. Gar's eyes conveyed an emotion that Rob had never seen the boy show before. It was understandable for him to feel such hatred, though. Raven was his girlfriend.

The others left Rob after a few minutes, so that he could get dressed. He did so numbly, with wide, unseeing eyes.

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There was good news, and there was bad news, the group of five soon learned.

The good news was that Raven was alive; Maya had shot her in the shoulder, right below her collarbone, so nothing important was damaged. She would have to wear a sling for a few weeks, but her teachers would find a way to get class-notes to her.

The bad news, on the other hand, was something that Gar discovered later that evening. Gar, Terra, and Vick had been allowed to drive down to the local hospital, where Raven had been taken; Kori had a major Government test to study for, and Rob still had a temperature of a hundred and one. Rob had suggested that they could sneak him in, but the fever was actually sort of apparent; he had a glazed look in his eyes, like perhaps he was about to start talking to one of his other personalities.

"Can't you drive faster?" Gar urged as he wriggled impatiently in the passenger seat of Vick's SUV.

"Do you want me to get us all killed?" Vick replied for the second time since they'd gotten in the vehicle. "Driving is harder than it looks." He demonstrated this fact by swiveling around in his seat to see Terra, who was perched on the middle-seat behind Vick and Gar.

"You doing alright?" Vick asked Terra. The girl nodded in response and went back to staring out the window tranquilly.

They arrived at the hospital exactly nine minutes later, flushed and hurried. Vick was close to experiencing road rage. He pushed open the lobby door dramatically, and led the way to the front desk; Terra and Gar followed suite, minus the drama. The receptionist gave them Raven's room number, and the trek began. With the help of a friendly doctor and a brief psychic blast from Terra, they found the room in a record time of eleven minutes (they had gotten horribly lost and ended up walking into the employee cafeteria, which was filled with pasty, scrub-bearing people reading medical journals and the like). However, there was no sign of them begin let into the room right away, from the looks of it, or rather from the sound of it.

"I'm her guardian," a woman inside the room was saying in a shrill voice. "I can take her if I want to!"

"M'am," said a male voice (probably a doctor). "I'm sorry, but we need to keep her hospitalized at least until she wakes up."

"And how long will that be?" The woman sounded spiteful, yet her voice was also on the edge of concern.

"There is no way to tell, m'am," the doctor said.

With a flurry of emotion and disgust, the door flew open, and a woman burst out. She was short, 5'5'' at tallest, and looked to be in her late 30s or early 40s. Her hair had a pixie-cut and was dyed blonde, by the looks of the darker roots, and she wore worn-looking jeans, a USC Alumni sweatshirt, and black Crocs. She looked tired, judging by the bags beneath her green eyes, but her eyebrows went straight up when she saw the three teenagers standing outside the door.

"I'm guessing you all are Raven's friends?" she asked wearily.

"Yeah," Vick answered authoritatively. "I'm Vick, this is Terra, and this is Gar."

Gar smiled hesitantly. "I'm, uh, actually Raven's boyfriend. It's nice to meet you."

"_Finally_, the girl gets a boyfriend." The woman laughed warmly. "I'm Raven's adoptive mother," she said. "You can call me Maggie." The mood lightened up for a moment, but it went back down when Maggie noticed Terra gazing at the hospital room door, a distant look in her blue eyes.

"Is she okay?" Vick asked slowly.

"She's asleep," Maggie replied. "There isn't anything to worry about, though, according to the doctors. But that's my little girl in there. She just got shot, for heaven's sake! I'm going to worry. It's natural; it's a mother's instinct." Gar could tell already that he was going to like this woman

"That's why I want to take her out of school and bring her home," Maggie continued.

_I spoke too soon,_ Gar thought with an inward sigh.

"I don't like the thought of her going to school away from home any longer," Maggie was saying. "I'm sorry," she added quickly, seeing Terra, Gar, and Vick's crestfallen faces. "It's what I have to do."

Terra looked at her feet, tapping her toes against the tile floors. "So… she wouldn't be coming back to Gotham Prep, like, ever?" Gar and Vick could almost see the tiny tears welling up in Terra's eyes.

"I'm not sure." Maggie sank down into a chair next to the door. Her hand went straight to her temple. "I'll think about it while she's asleep."

The door cracked open, and the doctor poked his graying head out. Maggie looked up hopefully, but the man wasn't looking at her.

"You three can come in and see her, if you would like," he said, opening the door wider so that Vick, Gar, and Terra could squeeze in. The door closed behind them, leaving Maggie alone in the desolate hallway.

The room was about as big as a Gotham Prep dorm room, only without three of the beds and the desk and the bookshelf. There was a white bed and some institutional-looking chairs, and a beeping machine. Lying against the white pillows, her violet hair spreading like a halo around her small face, was Raven. She looked paler than usual, Gar noted.

_Pale as death,_ he thought poetically, but he immediately tried to push the words back out of his mind.

Raven was asleep, like the doctor had said. Her chest rose and fell with a tenth of the speed of her friend's hearts. Gar wondered vaguely if she knew what was going on, or if she was feeling as peaceful as she looked right now.

Terra rushed over to the bedside so fast that it looked as though the sheets would dislodge themselves and become airborne, while Gar sauntered over and sat by Raven's other side; Vick preferred to watch from the foot of the bed, his gaze soft and caring.

"You'd better be okay, you hear?" Terra muttered with a weak smile. She put her hand down on Raven's unmoving arm.

"She'll be fine," the doctor assured from his position by the door. "Trust me." Terra was comforted by this, and it showed in her pleased smile. She let go of Raven's arm and sat back in her chair.

They were kicked out ten minutes later, and when the three entered the hallway, Maggie was still sitting there. She offered a weak smile and rearranged herself in her chair.

"If you come back tomorrow," she said, "I'll have my answer. I'll be staying here all night."

"Okay," answered Vick as he steered Gar and Terra towards the elevator.

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That night, Gar couldn't sleep. He tossed and turned until hours after Vick and Rob had drifted off, but no matter how motionless he was and how long he kept his eyes closed, Gar couldn't make himself fall asleep. He finally dozed off around 2:00, listening to his iPod. Even then, he had a dream that the Kraken ate his homework, and when he went inside the creature to find it, Henry VIII was sitting there, eating Funyuns and watching the infomercial channel on a Teletubby's stomach-television screen-thing. Gar went insane and split open the Teletubby's head with a bo-staff, and then The Manfunk showed up and tried to suspend Gar for violence.

Even in the midst of tragedy, Gar's mind was capable of it's same old peculiarity.

Breakfast was almost completely lost to the infamous Awkward Silence. Not one of the five present had had anything resembling a refreshing sleep, besides Rob, who was still fever-ridden. He was going to the nurse today, rather than to class, but he felt as though his friends needed him there at breakfast, to fill the silence if not anything else.

"Pass the napkins," Terra mumbled at one point, after sloshing Dr. Pepper onto the table, but that was pretty much the extent of the conversation.

Even band that afternoon was depressing and dreary. While older members offered sympathetic smiles or words of encouragement, or in some cases anger-induced threats upon the name of Maya Parrish, the sixth and seventh graders scurried around with hushed, gossiping voices, all the while throwing wide-eyed looks at Gar and Terra.

"My parents are coming for me this afternoon," Anna Kole reported with red-rimmed eyes towards the end of the period. "They don't want me here until they're sure everything is safe again." Sadly, this was the cry of many a Gotham Prep Viking; a few parents had come to retrieve their child within twelve hours of the shooting, and others had been arriving all day.

"I told my mom that if she came to get me I wouldn't go," Fizzy said defiantly. "Maya was just one case of teen insanity. It's not like the whole student population is about to start pulling out guns and murdering everybody, right?"

"If I talked to my dad like that," said Terra, "he would throw me out into the street. I mean, given that he were to have time to call and check up on me anyways." When Fizzy and Anna shot her quizzical looks, Terra added, "He's a working-type dad. He's never home."

Gar remained silent. Truthfully, he had no idea what Hannah would do if her talked back to her. She had called last night, just to make sure Gar was okay; he told her he was fine, but he left out the part where his girlfriend had been shot and was in the hospital in a deep sleep.

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Fortunately, the "deep sleep" part didn't last much longer; Gar and Terra were called to the office at the end of seventh period to receive news that Raven had woken up no less than an hour before. She was still tired, and the doctors were still fixing up her arm, but at least she was awake. Gar was so ecstatic that he threw his arms around Terra right there in front of Ms. Becerra, the lady who worked the desk in the school office. In fact, he was so happy he could have hugged Ms. Becerra as well, right then and there.

Countering the good fortune, however, Gar and Terra had extra band practice for their halftime show the next night (They needed to find a decent-enough snare drummer to temporarily replace Raven), and they couldn't go down to the hospital right away. Instead, Kori and Vick went by themselves, and Gar and Terra arranged a ride with Scott Russell, the hot, streaking guy from band.

"Thanks for the ride," Gar called to Scott an hour later as he and Terra were let off in front of the hospital. They could see Vick's SUV parked in the visitors' lot, underneath the shade of a large tree.

Gar held his breath and squeezed Terra's hand as the two made their way up to Raven's room (in only eight minutes, this time). When they got there, the door was propped open with a chair, which Terra promptly tripped over.

"The door won't stay open on its own," said a familiar voice, and Gar turned his head from where Terra was nursing her bruised knee.

"Raven," he breathed. Raven was sitting up against a small mountain range of white pillows. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her face nearly blended in with the bedding.

"Hi," she answered with a smile. For the first time, Gar noticed the other people in the room: Vick was seated in a chair next to the bedside, Maggie was standing up by the window, and Kori was sitting Indian-style at the foot of the hospital bed, leaning over Raven's feet with a bottle of nail polish.

"Kori's giving me a French pedicure," Raven joked, motioning to the madness going on at the foot of her bed. "I tried to resist, but you know Kori. She just never gives up."

"Hey, Rae!" Terra had at last managed to get up off the floor, and was coming to rest alongside Kori.

Them moment of silence that followed was like an unspoken request between the posse of five. "Maggie," Raven said. "Could you give us some time alone, please?"

"Sure," the woman answered. She looked tired, but relieved. "I'll be down by the drink machine." She pulled a dollar bill from her jeans pocket and left through the partially open door. Terra noticed that she didn't trip over the chair.

"I'm so glad you're okay," Gar said as soon as Maggie's footsteps faded out to normal hospital ambiance, "but I can't help wondering, why-"

"Why did Maya shoot me?" Raven finished bluntly. "It's a long story."

"We have time," Vick said quickly. "After all, if it concerns you, it concerns us."

Raven seemed to be considering it for a moment, and a meaningful look from Gar urged her on to finally speak. "I think Maya was jealous," she recounted, choosing her words carefully. "I think she was jealous of me because I have so many things she doesn't: I have a great group of friends who don't compete or anything, I have a boyfriend who loves me," Raven threw another look at Gar, who blushed, "and my life isn't complicated from gossip and money and all that stuff. I mean, if you all can understand…" Raven looked down and tried to focus on the tiny white tip of her pinkie-toenail.

"She was just so used to everyone loving her," Vick related, "that she couldn't take there being someone who had something she didn't."

"Yeah," Raven replied. Then, mustering up all her nerve, she turned to Gar. "She was jealous of me because of you," Raven said slowly. "You're like, the only guy in our grade who doesn't love her, so she was out to change that."

"Oh yeah," joked Gar. "I'm so sure than killing my girlfriend will make me fall in love with Maya."

"She was willing to do anything," Raven said, shaking her head. "She was a pretty messed up girl-"

"-And she's in court for attempted murder now," Vick interrupted. "We can forget about her." He looked Raven full the face, and she sighed, biting her bottom lip.

"I guess we can," she agreed, settling back into her mound of cushions. The seconds ticked by, slowing turning into another long silence. Thankfully, it was broken as soon as it had come.

"What did your.. your…" Gar didn't know what to call Maggie. "What did Maggie decide about school? Are you staying?" He felt a sweat build up at his scalp in anticipation of her answer.

Raven nodded. "I'm staying," she said, and Gar's heart swelled with relief. "We talked it over not long after I woke up, and I convinced her to let me stay here."

"Sweet!" Gar yelped, and he started to throw his arms around his girlfriend. However, she warded him off with a bony elbow.

"Remember the shoulder," Raven growled, but her grouchy voice subsided into seldom-heard giggling. "Now, who wants to be a dear and buy me a Coke?"

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**So there was chapter ten. **

**Just a side note, the name "Black Wednesday" comes from a song by Cold that I really like, called "Black Sunday", which I felt fit the mood of this chapter. **

**As of now, I haven't started on chapter eleven at all, so it might take a while. I'm introducing the character of Jenny, who is based on Jinx. However, as I like the Jinx of later episodes much better, I'm starting off with Jenny being nice. **

**As you might have collected from the setting of this chapter, the Gotham Prep school year is nearing midterms. I was planning on making this story continue through first semester, and have a sequel cover the rest of the year, but I realized that as Teen Titans is kind of dying out, not many people would really want to find any new stories. Instead, I'll just make this one go all the way to June, as long as all of y'all stay around to read it, okay?**

**Luv, Giz**

* * *


	11. Final Author's Note

**Sorry to any of you who might have been looking forwards to the next chapter, but...**

* * *

Okay, forgetting what I said about continuing the GP school year throughout June, I've decided to finish this one up and get the sequel going in full swing. So thank oyu so much to all of you who have read and reviewed my story! It means a lot to me know that someone appreciates my hard work.

_Gotham Prep 2 _should be up as soon as I get done with chapter three. I have some writer's block, however, so that might be a while.

Tah-tah for now!

-Giz

PS: If you're a _High School Musical_ fan, check out my story _Crash_. I always love to get more opinions on it!

Thanks again for reading _Gotham Prep_, y'all!!!


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